IRLF 


B    M 


53D 


MISS  LULU  BETT 


BY 

ZONA  GALE 

ATTTHOB  OF  "FRIENDSHIP   VILLAGE,"  "FBIEND6HIP    THJUAGB    LOTB 

BTOBIK8,"  "TltE  LOVES  OF   PJOJLEAS  AED   tTTAKE,"   "BIBIH,"  KTO. 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1920 


v 


COPTKIGHT,  1920,  BT 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


PBIKTED   IN  THB   UNITKI>  STATES  OV  AMHBIGA 


CONTENTS 


I.  APRIL 1 

J*f  MAT 31 

HI.  JUNE (J7 

JXfo  JULY 89 

V,  AUGUST Ill 

VI.  SEPTEMBER 153 


423872 


I 

APRIL 


MISS  LULU  BETT 


APRIL 

THE  Deacons  were  at  supper.    In  the 
middle  of  the  table  was  a  small,  ap 
pealing  tulip  plant,  looking  as  any 
thing  would  look  whose  sun  was  a  gas  jet. 
This  gas  jet  was  high  above  the  table  and 
flared,  with  a  sound. 

"Better  turn  down  the  gas  jest  a  little," 
Mr.  Deacon  said,  and  stretched  up  to  do  so. 
He  made  this  joke  almost  every  night.  He 
seldom  spoke  as  a  man  speaks  who  has  some 
thing  to  say,  but  as  a  man  who  makes  some 
thing  to  say. 

"WelL  what  have  we  on  the  festive  board 
to-night?"  he  questioned,  eyeing  it.  "Fes 
tive"  was  his  favourite  adjective.  "Beau- 

1 


:  /;  Miss  Lulu  Bett 


tiful,"  too.  In  October  he  might  be  heard 
asking:  "Where's  my  beautiful  fall  coat?" 

"We  have  creamed  salmon,"  replied  Mrs. 
Deacon  gently.  "On  toast,"  she  added,  with 
a  scrupulous  regard  for  the  whole  truth. 
Why  she  should  say  this  so  gently  no  one 
can  tell.  She  says  everything  gently.  Her 
"Could  you  leave  me  another  bottle  of  milk 
this  morning?"  would  wring  a  milkman's 
heart. 

"Well,  now,  let  us  see,"  said  Mr.  Deacon, 
and  attacked  the  principal  dish  benignly. 
"Let  us  see,"  he  added,  as  he  served. 

"I  don't  want  any,"  said  Monona. 

The  child  Monona  was  seated  upon  a  book 
and  a  cushion,  so  that  her  little  triangle  of 
nose  rose  adultly  above  her  plate.  Her  re 
mark  produced  precisely  the  effect  for  which 
she  had  passionately  hoped. 

"What's  this?"  cried  Mr.  Deacon.  "No 
salmon?" 

"No,"  said  Monona,  inflected  up,  chin 
pertly  pointed.  She  felt  her  power,  dis 
carded  her  "sir." 


April 

"Oh  now,  Pet!"  from  Mrs.  Deacon,  on 
three  notes.  "You  liked  it  before." 

"I  don't  want  any,"  said  Monona,  in  pre 
cisely  her  original  tone. 

"Just  a  little?  A  very  little?"  Mr.  Dea 
con  persuaded,  spoon  dripping. 

The  child  Monona  made  her  lips  thin  and 
straight  and  shook  her  head  until  her  straight 
hair  flapped  in  her  eyes  on  either  side.  Mr. 
Deacon's  eyes  anxiously  consulted  his  wife's 
eyes.  What  is  this?  Their  progeny  will 
not  eat?  What  can  be  supplied? 

"Some  bread  and  milk!"  cried  Mrs.  Dea 
con  brightly,  exploding  on  "bread."  One 
wondered  how  she  thought  of  it. 

"No,"  said  Monona,  inflection  up,  chin 
the  same.-  She  was  affecting  indifference  to 
this  scene,  in  which  her  soul  delighted.  She 
twisted  her  head,  bit  her  lips  unconcernedly, 
and  turned  her  eyes  to  the  remote. 

There  emerged  from  the  fringe  of  things, 
where  she  perpetually  hovered,  Mrs.  Dea 
con's  older  sister,  Lulu  Bett,  who  was  "mak 
ing  her  home  with  us."  And  that  was  pre* 

3 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


cisely  the  case.  They  were  not  making  her 
a  home,  goodness  knows.  Lulu  was  the 
family  beast  of  burden. 

"Can't  I  make  her  a  little  milk  toast?" 
she  asked  Mrs.  Deacon. 

Mrs.  Deacon  hesitated,  not  with  com 
punction  at  accepting  Lulu's  offer,  not  dip 
lomatically  to  lure  Monona.  But  she  hesi 
tated  habitually,  by  nature,  as  another  is  by 
nature  vivacious  or  brunette. 

"Yes!"  shouted  the  child  Monona. 

The  tension  relaxed.  Mrs.  Deacon  as 
sented.  Lulu  went  to  the  kitchen.  Mr. 
Deacon  served  on.  Something  of  this  scene 
was  enacted  every  day.  For  Monona  the 
drama  never  lost  its  zest.  It  never  occurred 
to  the  others  to  let  her  sit  without  eating, 
once,  as  a  cure-all.  The  Deacons  were  de 
voted  parents  and  the  child  Monona  was 
delicate.  She  had  a  white,  grave  face,  white 
hair,  white  eyebrows,  white  lashes.  She  was 
sullen,  anaemic.  They  let  her  wear  rings. 
She  "toed  in."  The  poor  child  was  the  late 
birth  of  a  late  marriage  and  the  principal 

4 


April 

jo  >-  which  she  had  provided  them  thus  far 
was  the  pleased  reflection  that  they  had  pro 
duced  her  at  all. 

"Where's  your  mother,  Ina?"  Mr.  Dea 
con  inquired.  "Isn't  she  coming  to  her  sup 
per?" 

"Tantrim,"  said  Mrs.  Deacon,  softly. 

"Oh,  ho,"  said  he,  and  said  no  more. 

The  temper  of  Mrs.  Bett,  who  also  lived 
with  them,  had  days  of  high  vibration  when 
she  absented  herself  from  the  table  as  a 
kind  of  self-indulgence,  and  no  one  could 
persuade  her  to  food.  "Tantrims,"  they 

called  these  occasions. 

• 

"Baked  potatoes,"  said  Mr.  Deacon. 
"That's  good— that's  good.  The  baked  po 
tato  contains  more  nourishment  than  pota 
toes  prepared  in  any  other  way.  The  nour 
ishment  is  next  to  the  skin.  Roasting 
retains  it." 

"That's  what  I  always  think,"  said  his 
wife  pleasantly. 

For  fifteen  years  they  had  agreed  about 
this. 

5 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


They  ate,  in  the  indecent  silence  of  fi  .st 
savouring  food.  A  delicate  crunching  of 
crust,  an  odour  of  baked-potato  shells,  the 
slip  and  touch  of  the  silver. 

"Num,  num,  nummy-num!"  sang  the 
child  Monona  loudly,  and  was  hushed  by 
both  parents  in  simultaneous  exclamation 
which  rivalled  this  lyric  outburst.  They 
were  alone  at  table.  Di,  daughter  of  a  wife 
early  lost  to  Mr.  Deacon,  was  not  there. 
Di  was  hardly  ever  there.  She  was  at  that 
age.  That  age,  in  Warbleton. 

A  clock  struck  the  half  hour. 

"It's  curious,"  Mr.  Deacon  observed, 
"how  that  clock  loses.  It  must  be  fully  quar 
ter  to."  He  consulted  his  watch.  "It  is 
quarter  to!"  he  exclaimed  with  satisfaction. 
"I'm  pretty  good  at  guessing  time." 

"I've  noticed  that!"  cried  his  Ina. 

"Last  night,  it  was  only  twenty-three  to, 
when  the  half  hour  struck,"  he  reminded 
her. 

"Twenty-one,  I  thought."  She  was  ten- 
6 


April 

tative,  regarded  him  with  arched  eyebrows, 
mastication  suspended. 

This  point  was  never  to  be  settled.  The 
colloquy  was  interrupted  by  the  child  Mo- 
nona,  whining  for  her  toast.  And  the  door 
bell  rang. 

"Dear  me!"  said  Mr.  Deacon.  "What 
can  anybody  be  thinking  of  to  call  just  at 
meal-time?" 

He  trod  the  hall,  flung  open  the  street 
door.  Mrs.  Deacon  listened.  Lulu,  com 
ing  in  with  the  toast,  was  warned  to  silence 
by  an  uplifted  finger.  She  deposited  the 
toast,  tiptoed  to  her  chair.  A  withered 
baked  potato  and  cold  creamed  salmon  were 
on  her  plate.  The  child  Monona  ate  with 
shocking  appreciation.  Nothing  could  be 
made  of  the  voices  in  the  hall.  But  Mrs. 
Bett's  door  was  heard  softly  to  unlatch. 
She,  too,  was  listening. 

A  ripple  of  excitement  was  caused  in  the 
dining-room  when  Mr.  Deacon  was  divined 
to  usher  some  one  to  the  parlour.  Mr.  Dea 
con  would  speak  with  this  visitor  in  a  few 

7 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


moments,  and  now  returned  to  his  table.  It 
was  notable  how  slight  a  thing  would  give 
him  a  sense  of  self-importance.  Now  he  felt 
himself  a  man  of  affairs,  could  not  even  have 
a  quiet  supper  with  his  family  without  the 
outside  world  demanding  him.  He  waved 
his  hand  to  indicate  it  was  nothing  which 
they  would  know  anything  about,  resumed 
his  seat,  served  himself  to  a  second  spoon 
of  salmon  and  remarked,  "More  roast  duck, 
anybody?"  in  a  loud  voice  and  with  a  slow 
wink  at  his  wife.  That  lady  at  first  looked 
blank,  as  she  always  did  in  the  presence  of 
any  humour  couched  with  the  least  indirec 
tion,  and  then  drew  back  her  chin  and  caught 
her  lower  lip  in  her  gold-filled  teeth.  This 
was  her  conjugal  rebuking. 

Swedenborg  always  uses  "conjugial." 
And  really  this  sounds  more  married.  It 
should  be  used  with  reference  to  the  Dea 
cons.  No  one  was  ever  more  married  than 
they — at  least  than  Mr.  Deacon.  He  made 
little  conjugal  jokes  in  the  presence  of  Lulu 
who,  now  completely  unnerved  by  the  habit, 

8 


April 

suspected  them  where  they  did  not  exist, 
feared  lurking  entendre  in  the  most  inno 
cent  comments,  and  became  more  tense  every 
hour  of  her  life. 

And  now  the  eye  of  the  master  of  the 
house  fell  for  the  first  time  upon  the  yellow 
tulip  in  the  centre  of  his  table. 

"Well,  well!"  he  said.     "What's  this?" 

Ina  Deacon  produced,  fleetly,  an  un 
looked-for  dimple. 

"Have  you  been  buying  flowers?"  the 
master  inquired. 

"Ask  Lulu,"  said  Mrs.  Deacon. 

He  turned  his  attention  full  upon  Lulu. 

"Suitors?"  he  inquired,  and  his  lips  left 
their  places  to  form  a  sort  of  ruff  about  the 
word. 

Lulu  flushed,  and  her  eyes  and  their  very 
brows  appealed. 

"It  was  a  quarter,"  she  said.  "There'll 
be  five  flowers." 

"You  bought  it?" 

"Yes.  There'll  be  five— that's  a  nickel 
apiece." 

9 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


His  tone  was  as  methodical  as  if  he  had 
been  talking  about  the  bread. 

"Yet  we  give  you  a  home  on  the  supposi 
tion  that  you  have  no  money  to  spend,  even 
for  the  necessities." 

His  voice,  without  resonance,  cleft  air, 
thought,  spirit,  and  even  flesh. 

Mrs.  Deacon,  indeterminately  feeling  her 
guilt  in  having  let  loose  the  dogs  of  her 
husband  upon  Lulu,  interposed:  "Well, 
but,  Herbert — Lulu  isn't  strong  enough  to 
work.  What's  the  use.  .  .  ." 

She  dwindled.  For  years  the  fiction  had 
been  sustained  that  Lulu,  the  family  beast 
of  burden,  was  not  strong  enough  to  work 
anywhere  else. 

"The  justice  business "  said  D wight 

Herbert  Deacon — he  was  a  justice  of  the 

peace — "and  the  dental  profession '  he 

was  also  a  dentist — "do  not  warrant  the 
purchase  of  spring  flowers  in  my  home." 

"Well,  but,  Herbert "     It  was  his 

wife  again. 

"No  more,"  he  cried  briefly,  with  a  slight 
10 


April 

bend  of  his  head.  "Lulu  meant  no  harm," 
he  added,  and  smiled  at  Lulu. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence  into  which 
Monona  injected  a  loud  "Num,  num,  num- 
my-num,"  as  if  she  were  the  burden  of  an 
Elizabethan  lyric.  She  seemed  to  close  the 
incident.  But  the  burden  was  cut  off  un 
timely.  There  was,  her  father  reminded 
her  portentously,  company  in  the  parlour. 

"When  the  bell  rang,  I  was  so  afraid 
something  had  happened  to  Di,"  said  Ina 
sighing. 

"Let's  see,"  said  Di's  father.  "Where 
is  little  daughter  to-night?" 

He  must  have  known  that  she  was  at 
Jenny  Plow's  at  a  tea  party,  for  at  noon 
they  had  talked  of  nothing  else;  but  this 
was  his  way.  And  Ina  played  his  game, 
always.  She  informed  him,  dutifully. 

"Oh,  Ao,"  said  he,  absently.  How  could 
he  be  expected  to  keep  his  mind  on  these 
domestic  trifles. 

"We  told  you  that  this  noon,"  said  Lulu. 
11 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


He  frowned,  disregarded  her.     Lulu  had 
no  delicacy. 

.,  "How  much  is  salmon  the  can  now?"  he 
inquired  abruptly — this  was  one  of  his 
forms  of  speech,  the  can,  the  pound,  the 
cord. 

His  partner  supplied  this  information 
with  admirable  promptness.  Large  size, 
small  size,  present  price,  former  price — 
she  had  them  all. 

"Dear  me,"  said  Mr.  Deacon.  "That  is 
very  nearly  salmoney,  isn't  it?" 

"Herbert!"  his  Ina  admonished,  in  gen 
tle,  gentle  reproach.  Mr.  Deacon  punned, 
organically.  In  talk  he  often  fell  silent 
and  then  asked  some  question,  schemed  to 
permit  his  vice  to  flourish.  Mrs.  Deacon's 
return  was  always  automatic:  ".Herbert !" 

"Whose  Bert?"  he  said  to  this.  "I 
thought  I  was  your  Bert." 

She  shook  her  little  head.  "You  are  a 
case,"  she  told  him.  He  beamed  upon 
her.  It  was  his  intention  to  be  a  case. 

Lulu  ventured  in  upon  this  pleasantry, 
12 


April 

and  cleared  her  throat.  She  was  not  hoarse, 
but  she  was  always  clearing  her  throat. 

"The  butter  is  about  all  gone,"  she  ob 
served.  "Shall  I  wait  for  the  butter-woman 
or  get  some  creamery?" 

Mr.  Deacon  now  felt  his  little  joculari 
ties  lost  before  a  wall  of  the  matter  of  fact. 
He  was  not  pleased.  He  saw  himself  as 
the  light  of  his  home,  bringer  of  bright 
ness,  lightener  of  dull  hours.  It  was  a 
pretty  role.  He  insisted  upon  it.  To 
maintain  it  intact,  it  was  necessary  to  turn 
upon  their  sister  with  concentrated  irrita 
tion. 

"Kindly  settle  these  matters  without 
bringing  them  to  my  attention  at  meal 
time,"  he  said  icily. 

Lulu  flushed  and  was  silent.  She  was 
an  olive  woman,  once  handsome,  now  with 
flat,  bluish  shadows  under  her  wistful  eyes. 
And  if  only  she  would  look  at  her  brother 
Herbert  and  say  something.  But  she  looked 
in  her  plate. 

ia 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"I  want  some  honey,"  shouted  the  child, 
Monona. 

"There  isn't  any,  Pet,"  said  Lulu. 

"I  want  some,"  said  Monona,  eyeing  her 
stonily.  But  she  found  that  her  hair-ribbon 
could  be  pulled  forward  to  meet  her  lips, 
and  she  embarked  on  the  biting  of  an  end. 
Lulu  departed  for  some  sauce  and  cake.  It 
was  apple  sauce.  Mr.  Deacon  remarked  that 
the  apples  were  almost  as  good  as  if  he 
had  stolen  them.  He  was  giving  the  im 
pression  that  he  was  an  irrepressible  fel 
low.  He  was  eating  very  slowly.  It  added 
pleasantly  to  his  sense  of  importance  to  feel 
that  some  one,  there  in  the  parlour,  was 
waiting  his  motion. 

At  length  they  rose.  Monona  flung  her 
self  upon  her  father.  He  put  her  aside 
firmly,  every  inch  the  father.  No,  no. 
Father  was  occupied  now.  Mrs.  Deacon 
coaxed  her  away.  Monona  encircled  her 
mother's  waist,  lifted  her  own  feet  from 
the  floor  and  hung  upon  her.  "She's  such 
an  active  child,"  Lulu  ventured  brightly. 

14 


April 

"Not  unduly  active,  I  think,"  her  brother- 
in-law  observed. 

He  turned  upon  Lulu  his  bright  smile, 
lifted  his  eyebrows,  dropped  his  lids,  stood 
for  a  moment  contemplating  the  yellow 
tulip,  and  so  left  the  room. 

Lulu  cleared  the  table.  Mrs.  Deacon 
essayed  to  wind  the  clock.  Well  now.  Did 
Herbert  say  it  was  twenty-three  to-night 
when  it  struck  the  half  hour  and  twenty- 
one  last  night,  or  twenty-one  to-night  and 
last  night  twenty-three?  She  talked  of  it 
as  they  cleared  the  table,  but  Lulu  did  not 
talk. 

"Can't  you  remember?"  Mrs.  Deacon 
said  at  last.  "I  should  think  you  might  be 
useful." 

Lulu  was  lifting  the  yellow  tulip  to  set 
it  on  the  sill.  She  changed  her  mind. 
She  took  the  plant  to  the  wood-shed  and 
tumbled  it  with  force  upon  the  chip-pile. 

The  dining-room  table  was  laid  for  break 
fast.  The  two  women  brought  their  work 
and  sat  there.  The  child  Monona  hung 

15 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


miserably  about,  watching  the  clock.  Right 
or  wrong,  she  was  put  to  bed  by  it.  She 
had  eight  minutes  more — seven — six — 
five — 

Lulu  laid  down  her  sewing  and  left  the 
room.  She  went  to  the  wood-shed,  groped 
about  in  the  dark,  found  the  stalk  of  the 
one  tulip  flower  in  its  heap  on  the  chip- 
pile.  The  tulip  she  fastened  in  her  gown 
on  her  flat  chest. 

Outside  were  to  be  seen  the  early  stars. 
It  is  said  that  if  our  sun  were  as  near  to 
Arcturus  as  we  are  -near  to  our  sun,  the 
great  Arcturus  would  burn  our  sun  to 
nothingness. 


In  the  Deacons'  parlour  sat  Bobby  Lar- 
kin,  eighteen.  He  was  in  pain  all  over.  He 
was  come  on  an  errand  which  civilisation 
has  contrived  to  make  an  ordeal. 

Before  him  on  the  table  stood  a  photo 
graph  of  Diana  Deacon,  also  eighteen.  He 
hated  her  with  passion.  At  school  she 

16 


April 

mocked  him,  aped  him,  whispered  about 
him,  tortured  him.  For  two  years  he  had 
hated  her.  Nights  he  fell  asleep  planning 
to  build  a  great  house  and  engage  her  as 
its  servant. 

Yet,  as  he  waited,  he  could  not  keep  his 
eyes  from  this  photograph.  It  was  Di  at 
her  curliest,  at  her  fluffiest,  Di  conscious 
of  her  bracelet,  Di  smiling.  Bobby  gazed, 
his  basic  aversion  to  her  hard-pressed  by  a 
most  reluctant  pleasure.  He  hoped  that 
he  would  not  see  her,  and  he  listened  for 
her  voice. 

Mr.  Deacon  descended  upon  him  with  an 
air  carried  from  his  supper  hour,  bland,  dis 
pensing.  Well!  Let  us  have  it.  "What 
did  you  wish  to  see  me  about?" — with  a 
use  of  the  past  tense  as  connoting  some 
thing  of  indirection  and  hence  of  delicacy — 
a  nicety  customary,  yet  unconscious.  Bobby 
had  arrived  in  his  best  clothes  and  with 
an  air  of  such  formality  that  Mr.  Deacon 
had  instinctively  suspected  him  of  want 
ing  to  join  the  church,  and,  to  treat  the 

17 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


time  with  due  solemnity,  had  put  him  inv 
the    parlour    until    he   could    attend    at 
leisure. 

Confronted  thus  by  Di's  father,  the 
speech  which  Bobby  had  planned  deserted 
him. 

"I  thought  if  you  would  give  me  a  job," 
he  said  defencelessly. 

"So  that's  it!"  Mr.  Deacon,  who  always 
awaited  but  a  touch  to  be  either  irritable  or 
facetious,  inclined  now  to  be  facetious. 
"Filling  teeth?"  he  would  know.  "Marry 
ing  folks,  then?"  Assistant  justice  or  assis 
tant  dentist — which? 

Bobby  blushed.  No,  no,  but  in  that  big 
building  of  Mr.  Deacon's  where  his  office 
was,  wasn't  there  something  ...  It 
faded  from  him,  sounded  ridiculous.  Of 
course  there  was  nothing.  He  saw  it 
now. 

There  was  nothing.  Mr.  Deacon  con 
firmed  him.  But  Mr.  Deacon  had  an  idea. 
Hold  on,  he  said — hold  on.  The  grass. 
Would  Bobby  consider  taking  charge  of 

18 


April 

the  grass?  Though  Mr.  Deacon  was  of  the 
type  which  cuts  its  own  grass  and  glories  in 
its  vigour  and  its  energy,  yet  in  the  time 
after  that  which  he  called  "dental  hours" 
Mr.  Deacon  wished  to  work  in  his  garden. 
His  grass,  growing  in  late  April  rains, 
would  need  attention  early  next  month  .  .  . 
he  owned  two  lots — "of  course  property  is  a 
burden."  If  Bobby  would  care  to  keep 
the  grass  down  and  raked  .  .  .  Bobby 
would  care,  accepted  this  business  oppor 
tunity,  figures  and  all,  thanked  Mr.  Deacon 
with  earnestness.  Bobby's  aversion  to  Di, 
it  seemed,  should  not  stand  in  the  way  of 
his  advancement. 

"Then  that  is  checked  off,"  said  Mr. 
Deacon  heartily. 

Bobby  wavered  toward  the  door,  emerged 
on  the  porch,  and  ran  almost  upon  Di  re 
turning  from  her  tea-party  at  Jenny 
Plow's. 

"Oh,  Bobby!    You  came  to  see  me?" 

She  was  as  fluffy,  as  curly,  as  smiling 
as  her  picture.  She  was  carrying  pink, 
19 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


gauzy  favours  and  a  spear  of  flowers.  Un 
deniably  in  her  voice  there  was  pleasure. 
Her  glance  was  startled  but  already  com 
placent.  She  paused  on  the  steps,  a  lovely 
figure. 

But  one  would  say  that  nothing  but  the 
truth  dwelt  in  Bobby. 

"Oh,  hullo,"  said  he.  "No.  I  came  to 
see  your  father." 

He  marched  by  her.  His  hair  stuck  up 
at  the  back.  His  coat  was  hunched  about 
his  shoulders.  His  insufficient  nose,  abun 
dant,  loose-lipped  mouth  and  brown  eyes 
were  completely  expressionless.  He 
marched  by  her  without  a  glance. 

She  flushed  with  vexation.  Mr.  Deacon, 
as  one  would  expect,  laughed  loudly,  took 
the  situation  in  his  elephantine  grasp  and 
pawed  at  it. 

"Mamma!  Mamma!  What  do  you  s'pose? 
Di  thought  she  had  a  beau " 

"Oh,  papa!"  said  Pi.  "Why,  I  just  hate 
Bobby  Larkin  and  the  whole  school  knows 
it." 

20 


April 

Mr.  Deacon  returned  to  the  dining-room, 
humming  in  his  throat.  He  entered  upon 
a  pretty  scene. 

His  Ina  was  darning.  Four  minutes  of 
grace  remaining  to  the  child  Monona,  she 
was  spinning  on  one  toe  with  some  Baccha 
nalian  idea  of  making  the  most  of  the 
present.  Di  dominated,  her  ruffles,  her 
blue  hose,  her  bracelet,  her  ring. 

"Oh,  and  mamma,"  she  said,  "the  sweet 
est  party  and  the  dearest  supper  and  the 
darlingest  decorations  and  the  gorgeous- 
est- 

"Grammar,  grammar,"  spoke  Dwight 
Herbert  Deacon.  He  was  not  sure  what 
he  meant,  but  the  good  fellow  felt  some 
violence  done  somewhere  or  other. 

"Well,"  said  Di  positively,  "they  were. 
Papa,  see  my  favour." 

She  showed  him  a  sugar  dove,  and  he 
clucked  at  it. 

Ina  glanced  at  them  fondly,  her  face 
assuming  its  loveliest  light.  She  was  often 
ridiculous,  but  always  she  was  the  happy 

21 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


wife  and  mother,  and  her  role  reduced  her 
individual  absurdities  at  least  to  its  own. 

The  door  to  the  bedroom  now  opened  and 
Mrs.  Bett  appeared. 

"Well,  mother!"  cried  Herbert,  the 
"well"  curving  like  an  arm,  the  "mother" 
descending  like  a  brisk  slap.  TTungry 
now?" 

Mrs.  Bett  was  hungry  now.  She  had 
emerged  intending  to  pass  through  the 
room  without  speaking  and  find  food  in 
the  pantry.  By  obscure  processes  her  son- 
in-law's  tone  inhibited  all  this. 

"No,"  she  said.    "I'm  not  hungry." 

Now  that  she  was  there,  she  seemed  un 
certain  what  to  do.  She  looked  from  one 
to  another  a  bit  hopelessly,  somehow  foiled 
in  her  dignity.  She  brushed  at  her  skirt, 
the  veins  of  her  long,  wrinkled  hands  catch 
ing  an  intenser  blue  from  the  dark  cloth. 
She  put  her  hair  behind  her  ears. 

"We  put  a  potato  in  the  oven  for  you," 
said  Ina.  She  had  never  learned  quite  how 
to  treat  these  periodic  refusals  of  her  mother 

22 


April 

to  eat,  but  she  never  had  ceased  to  resent 
them. 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Mrs.  Bett.  Evi 
dently  she  rather  enjoyed  the  situation, 
creating  for  herself  a  spot-light  much  in  the 
manner  of  Monona. 

"Mother,"  said  Lulu,  "let  me  make  you 
some  toast  and  tea." 

Mrs.  Bett  turned  her  gentle,  bloodless 
face  toward  her  daughter,  and  her  eyes 
warmed. 

"After  a  little,  maybe,"  she  said.  "I 
think  I'll  run  over  to  see  Grandma  Gates 
now,"  she  added,  and  went  toward  the 
door. 

"Tell  her,"  cried  Dwight,  "tell  her  she's 
my  best  girl." 

Grandma  Gates  was  a  rheumatic  cripple 
who  lived  next  door,  and  whenever  the  Dea 
cons  or  Mrs.  Bett  were  angry  or  hurt  or 
wished  to  escape  the  house  for  some  reason, 
they  stalked  over  to  Grandma  Gates — in 
lieu  of,  say,  slamming  a  door.  These  visits 
radiated  an  almost  daily  friendliness  which 
23 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


lifted  and  tempered  the  old  invalid's  lot 
and  life. 

Di  flashed  out  at  the  door  again,  on  some 
trivial  permission. 

"A  good  many  of  mamma's  stitches  in 
that  dress  to  keep  clean,"  Ina  called  after. 

"Early,  darling,  early!"  her  father  re 
minded  her.  A  faint  regurgitation  of  his 
was  somehow  invested  with  the  paternal. 

"What's  this?"  cried  Dwight  Herbert 
Deacon  abruptly. 

On  the  clock  shelf  lay  a  letter. 

"Oh,  Dwight!"  Ina  was  all  compunction. 
"It  came  this  morning.  I  forgot." 

"I  forgot  it  too!  And  I  laid  it  up  there." 
Lulu  was  eager  for  her  share  of  the  blame. 

"Isn't  it  understood  that  my  mail  can't 
wait  like  this?" 

Dwight's  sense  of  importance  was  now 
being  fed  in  gulps. 

"I  know.  I'm  awfully  sorry,"  Lulu  said, 
"but  you  hardly  ever  get  a  letter " 

This  might  have  made  things  worse,  but 
24 


April 

it  provided  Dwight  with  a  greater  im 
portance. 

"Of  course,  pressing  matter  goes  to  my 
office,"  he  admitted  it.  "Still,  my  mail 
should  have  more  careful " 

He  read,  frowning.  He  replaced  the 
letter,  and  they  hung  upon  his  motions  as 
he  tapped  the  envelope  and  regarded  them. 

"Now!"  said  he.  "What  do  you  think 
I  have  to  tell  you?" 

"Something  nice,"  Ina  was  sure. 

"Something  surprising,"  Dwight  said 
portentously. 

"But,  Dwight — is  it  nice?"  from  his  Ina. 

"That  depends.  I  like  it.  Soil  Lulu." 
He  leered  at  her.  "It's  company." 

"Oh,  Dwight,"  said  Ina.    "Who?" 

"From  Oregon,"  he  said,  toying  with  his 
suspense. 

"Your  brother!"  cried  Ina.  "Is  he  com 
ing?" 

"Yes.    Ninian's  coming,  so  he  says." 

"Ninian!"  cried  Ina  again.  She  was  ex 
cited,  round-eyed,  her  moist  lips  parted. 
25 

i 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Dwight's  brother  Ninian.  How  long  was 
it?  Nineteen  years.  South  America,  Cen 
tral  America,  Mexico,  Panama  "and  all." 
When  was  he  coining  and  what  was  he  com 
ing  for? 

"To  see  me,"  said  Dwight.  "To  meet 
you.  Some  day  next  week.  He  don't 
know  what  a  charmer  Lulu  is,  or  he'd  come 
quicker." 

Lulu  flushed  terribly.  Not  from  the  im 
plication.  But  from  the  knowledge  that 
she  was  not  a  charmer. 

The  clock  struck.  The  child  Monona 
uttered  a  cutting  shriek.  Herbert's  eyes 
flew  not  only  to  the  child  but  to  his  wife. 
What  was  this,  was  their  progeny  hurt? 

"Bedtime,"  his  wife  elucidated,  and 
added:  "Lulu,  will  you  take  her  to  bed? 
I'm  pretty  tired." 

Lulu  rose  and  took  Monona  by  the  hand, 
the  child  hanging  back  and  shaking  her 
straight  hair  in  an  unconvincing  negative. 

As  they  crossed  the  room,  Dwight  Her- 
26 


April 

bert  Deacon,  strolling  about  and  snapping 
his  fingers,  halted  and  cried  out  sharply: 

"Lulu.     One  moment!" 

He  approached  her.  A  finger  was  ex 
tended,  his  lips  were  parted,  on  his  forehead 
was  a  frown. 

"You  picked  the  flower  on  the  plant?"  he 
asked  incredulously. 

Lulu  made  no  reply.  But  the  child 
Monona  felt  herself  lifted  and  borne  to  the 
stairway  and  the  door  was  shut  with 
violence.  On  the  dark  stairway  Lulu's 
arms  closed  about  her  in  an  embrace  which 
left  her  breathless  and  squeaking.  And  yet 
Lulu  was  not  really  fond  of  the  child 
Monona,  either.  This  was  a  discharge  of 
emotion  akin,  say,  to  slamming  the  door. 


II 

MAY 


II 

MAY 

LULU  was  dusting  the  parlour.  The 
parlour  was  rarely  used,  but  every 
morning  it  was  dusted.  By  Lulu. 

She  dusted  the  black  walnut  centre  table 
which  was  of  Ina's  choosing,  and  looked 
like  Ina,  shining,  complacent,  abundantly 
curved.  The  leather  rocker,  too,  looked 
like  Ina,  brown,  plumply  upholstered,  tip 
ping  back  a  bit.  Really,  the  davenport 
looked  like  Ina,  for  its  chintz  pattern 
seemed  to  bear  a  design  of  lifted  eyebrows 
and  arch,  reproachful  eyes. 

Lulu  dusted  the  upright  piano,  and  that 
was  like  Dwight — in  a  perpetual  attitude 
of  rearing  back,  with  paws  out,  playful, 
but  capable,  too,  of  roaring  a  ready  bass. 

And  the  black  fireplace — there  was  Mrs. 
Bett  to  the  life.     Colourless,  fireless,  and 
with  a  dust  of  ashes. 
31 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


In  the  mklst  of  all  was  Lulu  herself  re 
flected  in  the  narrow  pier  glass,  bodiless- 
looking  in  her  blue  gingham  gown,  but 
somehow  alive.  Natural. 

This  pier  glass  Lulu  approached  with 
expectation,  not  because  of  herself  but  be 
cause  of  the  photograph  on  its  low  marble 
shelf.  A  large  photograph  on  a  little  shelf- 
easel.  A  photograph  of  a  man  with  evident 
eyes,  evident  lips,  evident  cheeks — and  each 
of  the  six  were  rounded  and  convex.  You 
could  construct  the  rest  of  him.  Down 
there  under  the  glass  you  could  imagine 
him  extending,  rounded  and  convex,  with 
plump  hands  and  curly  thumbs  and  snug 
clothes.  It  was  Ninian  Deacon,  Dwight's 
brother. 

Every  day  since  his  coming  had  been 
announced  Lulu,  dusting  the  parlour,  had 
seen  the  photograph  looking  at  her  with  its 
eyes  somehow  new.  Or  were  her  own  eyes 
new?  She  dusted  this  photograph  with  a 
difference,  lifted,  dusted,  set  it  back,  less 
as  a  process  than  as  an  experience.  As  she 

32 


May 

dusted  the  mirror  and  saw  his  trim  sem 
blance  over  against  her  own  bodiless  reflec 
tion,  she  hurried  away.  But  the  eyes  of 
the  picture  followed  her,  and  she  liked  it. 

She  dusted  the  south  window-sill  and  saw 
Bobby  Larkin  come  round  the  house  and 
go  to  the  wood-shed  for  the  lawn  mower. 
She  heard  the  smooth  blur  of  the  cutter. 
Not  six  times  had  Bobby  traversed  the  lawn 
when  Lulu  saw  Di  emerge  from  the  house. 
Di  had  been  caring  for  her  canary  and  she 
carried  her  bird-bath  and  went  to  the  well, 
and  Lulu  divined  that  Di  had  deliberately 
disregarded  the  handy  kitchen  taps.  Lulu 
dusted  the  south  window  and  watched,  and 
in  her  watching  was  no  quality  of  spying 
or  of  criticism.  Nor  did  she  watch  wistfully. 
Rather,  she  looked  out  on  something  in 
which  she  had  never  shared,  could  not  by 
any  chance  imagine  herself  sharing. 

The  south  windows  were  open.  Airs  of 
May  bore  the  soft  talking. 

"Oh,  Bobby,  will  you  pump  while  I  hold 
this?"  And  again:  "Now  wait  till  I  rinse." 
33 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


And  again:  "You  needn't  be  so  glum"— 
the  village  salutation  signifying  kindly  at 
tention. 

Bobby  now  first  spoke:   "Who's  glum?' 
he  countered  gloomily. 

The  iron  of  those  days  when  she  had 
laughed  at  him  was  deep  within  him,  and 
this  she  now  divined,  and  said  absently: 

"I  used  to  think  you  were  pretty  nice. 
But  I  don't  like  you  any  more." 

"Yes,  you  used  to!"  Bobby  repeated 
derisively.  "Is  that  why  you  made  fun  of 
me  all  the  time?" 

At  this  Di  coloured  and  tapped  her  foot 
on  the  well-curb.  He  seemed  to  have  her 
now,  and  enjoyed  his  triumph.  But  Di 
looked  up  at  him  shyly  and  looked  down. 
"I  had  to,"  she  admitted.  "They  were  all 
teasing  me  about  you." 

"They  were?"  This  was  a  new  thought 
to  him.  Teasing  her  about  him,  were  tjf  y? 
He  straightened.  "Hjjl"  he  said,  in 

magnificent  evasion. 

84 


May 

"I  had  to  make  them  stop,  so  I  teased 
you.  I — I  never  wanted  to."  Again  the 
upward  look. 

"Well!"  Bobby  stared  at  her.  "I  never 
thought  it  was  anything  like  that." 

"Of  course  you  didn't."  She  tossed  back 
her  bright  hair,  met  his  eyes  full.  "And 
you  never  came  where  I  could  tell  you.  I 
wanted  to  tell  you." 

She  ran  into  the  house. 

Lulu  lowered  her  eyes.  It  was  as  if  she 
had  witnessed  the  exercise  of  some  secret 
gift,  had  seen  a  cocoon  open  or  an  egg 
hatch.  She  was  thinking: 

"How  easy  she  done  it.  Got  him  right 
over.  But  how  did  she  do  that?" 

Dusting  the  Dwight-like  piano,  Lulu 
looked  over-shoulder,  with  a  manner  of 
speculation,  at  the  photograph  of  Ninian. 

Bobby  mowed  and  pondered.  The 
magnificent  conceit  of  the  male  in  his  under 
standing  of  the  female  character  was  suffi 
ciently  developed  to  cause  him  to  welcome 
85 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


the  improvisation  which  he  had  just  heard. 
Perhaps  that  was  the  way  it  had  been.  Of 
course  that  was  the  way  it  had  been.  What 
a  fool  he  had  been  not  to  understand.  He 
cast  his  eyes  repeatedly  toward  the  house. 
He  managed  to  make  the  job  last  over  so 
that  he  could  return  in  the  afternoon.  He 
was  not  conscious  of  planning  this,  but  it 
was  in  some  manner  contrived  for  him  by 
forces  of  his  own  with  which  he  seemed  to 
be  cooperating  without  his  conscious  will. 
Continually  he  glanced  toward  the  house. 

These  glances  Lulu  saw.  She  was  a 
woman  of  thirty-four  and  Di  and  Bobby 
were  eighteen,  but  Lulu  felt  for  them  no 
adult  indulgence.  She  felt  that  sweetness 
of  attention  which  we  bestow  upon  May 
robins.  She  felt  more. 

She  cut  a  fresh  cake,  filled  a  plate,  called 
to  Di,  saying:  "Take  some  out  to  that 
Bobby  Larkin,  why  don't  you?" 

It  was  Lulu's  way  of  participating.  It 
was  her  vicarious  thrill. 

36 


May 

After  supper  Dwight  and  Ina  took  their 
books  and  departed  to  the  Chautauqua  Cir 
cle.  To  these  meetings  Lulu  never  went. 
The  reason  seemed  to  be  that  she  never 
went  anywhere. 

When  they  were  gone  Lulu  felt  an  in 
stant  liberation.     She  turned  aimlessly  to 
the  garden  and  dug  round  things  with  her 
finger.    And  she  thought  about  the  bright 
ness  of  that  Chautauqua  scene  to  which  Ina 
and  Dwight  had  gone.    Lulu  thought  about 
such  gatherings  in  somewhat  the  way  that 
a  futurist  receives  the  subjects  of  his  art — 
forms  not  vague,  but  heightened  to  intoler 
able  definiteness,  acute  colour,  and  always 
motion— motion  as  an  irAegraJL^palt  of  the 
desirable.    But  a  factor  of  aff  was  tltat  Lulu 
herself  was   the   participant,  y*iot  the   on 
looker.     The  perfection  ofner  dream  was 
not  impaired  by  any  longing.    She  had  her 
dream  as  a  saint  her  sense  of  heaven. 

"Lulie!"  her  mother  called.    "You  come 
out  of  that  damp." 

37 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


She  obeyed,  as  she  had  obeyed  that  voice 
all  her  life.  But  she  took  one  last  look 
down  the  dim  street.  She  had  not  known 
it,  but  superimposed  on  her  Chautauqua 
thoughts  had  been  her  faint  hope  that  it 
would  be  to-night,  while  she  was  in  the 
garden  alone,  that  Ninian  Deacon  would 
arrive.  And  she  had  on  her  wool  chally, 
her  coral  beads,  her  cameo  pin.  ... 

She  went  into  the  lighted  dining-room. 
Monona  was  in  bed.  Di  was  not  there. 
•Mrs.  Bett  was  in  Dwight  Herbert's  leather 
chair  and  she  lolled  at  her  ease.  It  was 
strange  to  see  this  woman,  usually  so  erect 
and  tense,  now  actually  lolling,  as  if  lolling 
were  the  positive,  the  vital,  and  her  ordi 
nary  rigidity  a  negation  of  her.  In  some 
corresponding  orgy  of  leisure  and  libera 
tion,  Lulu  sat  down  with  no  needle. 

"Inie  ought  to  make  over  her  delaine," 
Mrs.  Bett  comfortably  began.  They  talked 
of  this,  devised  a  mode,  recalled  other 
delaines.  "Dear,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Bett,  "I 
had  on  a  delaine  when  I  met  your  father." 


May 

She  described  it.  Both  women  talked  freely, 
with  animation'.  They  were  individuals  and 
alive.  To  the  two  pallid  beings  accessory 
to  the  Deacons'  presence,  Mrs.  Bett  and  her 
daughter  Lulu  now  bore  no  relationship. 
They  emerged,  had  opinions,  contradicted, 
their  eyes  were  bright. 

Toward  nine  o'clock  Mrs.  Bett  announced 
that  she  thought  she  should  have  a  lunch. 
This  was  debauchery.  She  brought  in  bread- 
and-butter,  and  a  dish  of  cold  canned  peas. 
She  was  committing  all  the  excesses  that 
she  knew — offering  opinions,  laughing,  eat 
ing.  It  was  to  be  seen  that  this  woman 
had  an  immense  store  of  vitality,  perpetual 
ly  submerged. 

When  she  had  eaten  she  grew  sleepy— 
rather  cross  at  the  last  and  inclined  to  hold 
up  her  sister's  excellencies  to  Lulu;  and, 
at  Lulu's  defence,  lifted  an  ancient  weapon. 
"What's  the  use  of  finding  fault  with 
Inie?  Where'd  you  been  if  she  hadn't 
married?" 

89 


Miss  Lulu 

] — . — 

Lulu  said  nothing. 
"What  say?"  Mrs.  Bett  demanded  shrilly. 
She  was  enjoying  it. 

Lulu  said  no  more.    After  a  long  tune: 
"You  always  was  jealous  of  Inie,"  said 
Mrs.  Bett,  and  went  to  her  bed. 

As  soon  as  her  mother's  door  had  closed, 
Lulu    took    the    lamp    from    its    bracket, 
stretching  up  her  long  body  and  her  long 
arms  until  her  skirt  lifted  to  show  her  really 
slim   and  pretty   feet.     Lulu's   feet  gave 
news  of  some  other  Lulu,  but  slightly  in 
carnate.     Perhaps,  so  far,  incarnate  only 
in  her  feet  and  her  long  hair. 

She  took  the  lamp  to  the  parlour  and 
stood  before  the  photograph  of  Ninian  Dea 
con,  and  looked  her  fill.     She  did  not  ad 
mire  the  photograph,  but  she  wanted  to 
look  at  it.    The  house  was  still,  there  wa 
no   possibility   of   interruption.      The   oc 
casion  became  sensation,  which  she  made 
no  effort  to  quench.    She  held  a  rendezvo 

with  she  knew  not  what. 

40 


May 

In  the  early  hours  of  the  next  afternoon 
with  the  sun  shining  across  the  threshold, 
Lulu  was  paring  something  at  the  kitchen 
table.  Mrs.  Bett  was  asleep.  ("I  don't 
blame  you  a  bit,  mother,"  Lulu  had  said, 
as  her  mother  named  the  intention.)  Ina 
was  asleep.  (But  Ina  always  took  off  the 
curse  by  calling  it  her  "si-esta,"  long  £.) 
Monona  was  playing  with  a  neighbour's 
child — you  heard  their  shrill  yet  lovely 
laughter  as  they  obeyed  the  adult  law  that 
motion  is  pleasure.  Di  was  not  there. 

A  man  came  round  the  house  and  stood 
tying  a  puppy  to  the  porch  post.  A  long 
shadow  fell  through  the  west  doorway,  the 
puppy  whined. 

"Oh,"  said  this  man.     "I  didn't  mean  to 

arrive   at   the   back   door,    but   since   I'm 
i  » 

He  lifted  a  suitcase  to  the  porch,  entered, 
and  filled  the  kitchen. 

"It's  Ina,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 

"I'm  her  sister,"  said  Lulu,  and  under 
stood  that  he  was  here  at  last. 
41 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Well,  I'm  Bert's  brother,"  said  Ninian. 
"So  I  can  come  in,  can't  I?" 

He  did  so,  turned  round  like  a  dog  be 
fore  his  chair  and  sat  down  heavily,  forc 
ing  his  fingers  through  heavy,  upspringing 
brown  hair. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Lulu.  "I'll  call  Ina, 
She's  asleep." 

"Don't  call  her,  then,"  said  Ninian. 
"Let's  you  and  I  get  acquainted." 

He  said  it  absently,  hardly  looking  at 

her. 

"I'll  get  the  pup  a  drink  if  you  can  spare 
me  a  basin,"  he  added. 

Lulu  brought  the  basin,  and  while  he 
went  to  the  dog  she  ran  tiptoeing  to  the 
dining-room  china  closet  and  brought  a  cut- 
glass  tumbler,  as  heavy,  as  ungainly  as  a 
stone  crock.  This  she  filled  with  milk. 

"I  thought  maybe  ..."  said  she,  and 

offered  it. 

"Thank  your  said  Ninian,  and  drained 
it.  "Making  pies,  as  I  live,"  he  observed, 
and  brought  his  chair  nearer  to  the  table. 

43 


May 

"I  didn't  know  Ina  had  a  sister,"  he  went 
on,  "I  remember  now  Bert  said  he  had 
two  of  her  relatives " 

Lulu  flushed  and  glanced  at  him  piti 
fully. 

"He  has,"  she  said.  "It's  my  mother 
and  me.  But  we  do  quite  a  good  deal  of 
the  work." 

"I'll  bet  you  do,"  said  Ninian,  and  did 
not  perceive  that  anything  had  been 
violated.  "What's  your  name?"  he  be 
thought. 

She  was  in  an  immense  and  obscure  ex 
citement.  Her  manner  was  serene,  her 
hands  as  they  went  on  with  the  peeling  did 
not  tremble;  her  replies  were  given  with 
sufficient  quiet.  But  she  told  him  her  name 
as  one  tells  something  of  another  and  more 
remote  creature.  She  felt  as  one  may  feel 
in  catastrophe — no  sharp  understanding  but 
merely  the  sense  that  the  thing  cannot  pos 
sibly  be  happening. 

"You  folks  expect  me?"  he  went  on. 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  cried,  almost  with 
43 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


vehemence.  "Why,  we've  looked  for  you 
every  day." 

"'See,"  he  said,  "how  long  have  they 
been  married?" 

Lulu  flushed  as  she  answered:  "Fifteen 

years." 

"And  a  year  before  that  the  first  one 
died — and  two  years  they  were  married," 
he  computed.  "I  never  met  that  one.  Then 
it's  close  to  twenty  years  since  Bert  and  I 
have  seen  each  other." 

"How  awful,"  Lulu  said,  and  flushed 

again. 

"Why?" 

"To  be  that  long  away  from  your  folks." 

Suddenly  she  found  herself  facing  this 
honestly,  as  if  the  immensity  of  her  pres 
ent  experience  were  clarifying  her  under 
standing:  Would  it  be  so  awful  to  be 
away  from  Bert  and  Monona  and  Di— yes, 
and  Ina,  for  twenty  years? 

"You  think  that?"  he  laughed.  "A  man 
don't  know  what  he's  like  till  he's  roamed 
around  on  his  own."  He  liked  the  sound 

44 


May 

of  it.  "Roamed  around  on  his  own,"  he 
repeated,  and  laughed  again.  "(Course  a 
woman  don't  know  that." 

"Why  don't  she?"  asked  Lulu.  She  bal 
anced  a  pie  on  her  hand  and  carved  the 
crust.  She  was  stupefied  to  hear  her  own 
question.  "Why  don't  she?" 

"Maybe  she  does.    Do  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Lulu. 

"Good  enough!"  He  applauded  noise 
lessly,  with  fat  hands.  His  diamond  ring 
sparkled,  his  even  white  teeth  flashed.  "I've 
had  twenty  years  of  galloping  about,"  he 
informed  her,  unable,  after  all,  to  transfer 
his  interests  from  himself  to  her. 

"Where?"  she  asked,  although  she  knew. 

"South  America.  Central  America. 
Mexico.  Panama."  He  searched  his  mem 
ory.  "Colombo,"  he  superadded. 

"My!"  said  Lulu.  She  had  probably 
never  in  her  life  had  the  least  desire  to  see 
any  of  these  places.  She  did  not  want  to 
see  them  now.  But  she  wanted  passionate- 
\j  to  meet  her  companion's  mind. 

45 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"It's  the  life,"  he  informed  her. 

"Must  be,"  Lulu  breathed.    "I "  she 

tried,  and  gave  it  up. 

"Where  you  been  mostly?"  he  asked  at 

last. 

By  this  unprecedented  interest  in  her  do 
ings  she  was  thrown  into  a  passion  of  ex 
citement. 

"Here,"  she  said.  "I've  always  been 
here.  Fifteen  years  with  Ina.  Before  that 
we  lived  in  the  country." 

He  listened  sympathetically  now,  his 
head  well  on  one  side.  He  watched  her 
veined  hands  pinch  at  the  pies.  "Poor  old 
girl,"  he  was  thinking. 

"Is  it  Miss  Lulu  Bett?"  he  abruptly  in 
quired.  "Or  Mrs.?" 

Lulu  flushed  in  anguish. 

"Miss,"  she  said  low,  as  one  who  con 
fesses  the  extremity  of  failure.  Then  from 
unplumbed  depths  another  Lulu  abruptly 
spoke  up.  "From  choice,"  she  said. 

He  shouted  with  laughter. 

"You    bet!     Oh,    you    bet!"    he    cried. 
46 


May 

"Never  doubted  it."  He  made  his  palms 
taut  and  drummed  on  the  table.  "Say!" 
he  said. 

Lulu  glowed,  quickened,  smiled.  Her 
face  was  another  face. 

"Which  kind  of  a  Mr.  are  you?"  she 
heard  herself  ask,  and  his  shoutings  re 
doubled.  Well!  Who  would  have  thought 
it  of  her? 

"Never  give  myself  away,"  he  assured 
her.  "Say,  by  George,  I  never  thought  of 
that  before!  There's  no  telling  whether  a 
man's  married  or  not,  by  his  name!" 

"It  don't  matter,"  said  Lulu. 

"Why  not?" 

"Not  so  many  people  want  to  know." 

Again  he  laughed.  This  laughter  was  in 
toxicating  to  Lulu.  No  one  ever  laughed 
at  what  she  said  save  Herbert,  who  laughed 
at  her.  "Go  it,  old  girl!"  Ninian  was  think 
ing,  but  this  did  not  appear. 

The  child  Monona  now  arrived,  banging 
the  front  gate  and  hurling  herself  round 
the  house  on  the  board  walk,  catching  the 
47 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


toe  of  one  foot  in  the  heel  of  the  other 
and  blundering  forward,  head  down,  her 
short,  straight  hair  flapping  over  her  face. 
She  landed  flat-footed  on  the  porch.  She 
began  to  speak,  using  a  ridiculous  perver 
sion  of  words,  scarcely  articulate,  then  in 
vogue  in  her  group.  And, 

"Whose  dog?"  she  shrieked. 

Ninian  looked  over  his  shoulder,  held  out 
his  hand,  finished  something  that  he  was 
saying  to  Lulu.  Monona  came  to  him 
readily  enough,  staring,  loose-lipped. 

"I'll  bet  I'm  your  uncle,"  said  Ninian. 

Relationship  being  her  highest  known 
form  of  romance,  Monona  was  thrilled  by 
this  intelligence. 

"Give  us  a  kiss,"  said  Ninian,  finding  in 
the  plural  some  vague  mitigation  for  some 
vague  offence. 

Monona,  looking  silly,  complied.  FAnd 
her  uncle  said  my  stars,  such  a  great  big 
tall  girl — they  ^ould  have  to  put  a  board 
on  her  head. 

49 


May 

"What's  that?"  inquired  Monona.  She 
had  spied  his  great  diamond  ring. 

"This,"  said  her  uncle,  "was  brought  to 
me  by  Santa  Claus,  who  keeps  a  jewellery 
shop  in  heaven." 

The  precision  and  speed  of  his  improvisa 
tion  revealed  him.  He  had  twenty  other 
diamonds  like  this  one.  He  kept  them  for 
those  Sundays  when  the  sun  comes  up  in 
the  west.  Of  course — often!  Some  day  he 
was  going  to  melt  a  diamond  and  eat  it. 
Then  you  sparkled  all  over  in  the  dark, 
ever  after.  Another  diamond  he  was  go 
ing  to  plant.  They  say He  did  it  all 

gravely,  absorbedly.  About  it  he  was  as 
conscienceless  as  a  savage.  This  was  no 
fancy  spun  to  pleasure  a  child.  This  was 
like  lying,  for  its  own  sake. 

He  went  on  talking  with  Lulu,  and  now 
again  he  was  the  tease,  the  braggart,  the 
unbridled,  unmodified  male. 

Monona  stood  in  the  circle  of  his  arm. 
The  little  being  was  attentive,  softened, 
subdued.  Some  pretty,  faint  light  visited 
49 


Miss  Lulu  JBett 


her.    In  her  listening  look,  she  showed  her 
self  a  charming  child. 

"It  strikes  me,"  said  Ninian  to  Lulu, 
"that  you're  going  to  do  something  mighty 
interesting  before  you  die." 

It  was  the  clear  conversational  impulse, 
born  of  the  need  to  keep  something  going, 
but  Lulu  was  all  faith. 

She  closed  the  oven  door  on  her  pies  and 
stood  brushing  flour  from  her  fingers.  He 
was  looking  away  from  her,  and  she  looked 
at  him.  He  was  completely  like  his  pic 
ture.  She  felt  as  if  she  were  looking  at 
his  picture  and  she  was  abashed  and  turned 
away. 

"Well,  I  hope  so,"  she  said,  which  had 
certainly  never  been  true,  for  her  old  form 
less  dreams  were  no  intention — nothing  but 
a  mush  of  discontent.  "I  hope  I  can  do 
something  that's  nice  before  I  quit,"  she 
said.  Nor  was  this  hope  now  independently 
true,  but  only  this  surprising  longing  to  ap 
pear  interesting  in  his  eyes.  To  dance  be 
fore  him.  "What  would  the  folks  think  of 

50 


May 

me,  going  on  so?"  she  suddenly  said.  Her 
mild  sense  of  disloyalty  was  delicious.  So 
was  his  understanding  glance. 

"You're  the  stuff,"  he  remarked  absently. 

She  laughed  happily. 

The  door  opened.     Ina  appeared. 

"Well!"  said  Ina.  It  was  her  remotest 
tone.  She  took  this  man  to  be  a  pedlar, 
beheld  her  child  in  his  clasp,  made  a  quick, 
forward  step,  chin  lifted.  She  had  time  for 
a  very  javelin  of  a  look  at  Lulu. 

"Hello!"  said  Ninian.  He  had  the  one 
formula.  "I  believe  I'm  your  husband's 
brother.  Ain't  this  Ina?" 

It  had  not  crossed  the  mind  of  Lulu  to 
present  him. 

Beautiful  it  was  to  see  Ina  relax,  soften, 
warm,  transform,  humanise.  It  gave  one 
hope  for  the  whole  species. 

"Ninian!"  she  cried.  She  lent  a  faint  im 
pression  of  the  double  e  to  the  initial  vowel. 
She  slurred  the  rest,  until  the  y  sound 
squinted  in.  Not  Neenyun,  but  nearly 
Neenyun. 

51 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


He  kissed  her. 

"Since  Dwight  isn't  here!"  she  cried,  and 
shook  her  finger  at  him.  Ina's  conception 
of  hostess-ship  was  definite:  A  volley  of 
questions — was  his  train  on  time?  He  had 
found  the  house  all  right?  Of  course!  Any 
one  could  direct  him,  she  should  hope.  And 
he  hadn't  seen  Dwight?  She  must  tele 
phone  him.  But  then  she  arrested  herself 
with  a  sharp,  curved  fling  of  her  starched 
skirts.  No!  They  would  surprise  him  at 
tea — she  stood  taut,  lips  compressed.  Oh, 
the  Plows  were  coming  to  tea.  How  un 
fortunate,  she  thought.  How  fortunate, 
she  said. 

The  child  Monona  made  her  knees  and 
elbows  stiff  and  danced  up  and  down.  She 
must,  she  must  participate. 

"Aunt  Lulu  made  three  pies!"  she 
screamed,  and  shook  her  straight  hair. 

"Gracious  sakes,"  said  Ninian.  "I 
brought  her  a  pup,  and  if  I  didn't  forget 
to  give  it  to  her." 

They  adjourned  to  the  porch — Ninian, 
52 


May A 

Ina,  Monona.  The  puppy  was  presented, 
and  yawned.  The  party  kept  on  about 
"the  place."  Ina  delightedly  exhibited  the 
tomatoes,  the  two  apple  trees,  the  new 
shed,  the  bird  bath.  Ninian  said  the  un- 
spellable  "m — m,"  rising  inflection,  and 
the  "I  see,"  prolonging  the  verb  as  was 
expected  of  him.  Ina  said  that  they  meant 
to  build  a  summer-house,  only,  dear  me, 
when  you  have  a  family — but  there,  he 
didn't  know  anything  about  that.  Ina  was 
using  her  eyes,  she  was  arch,  she  was 
coquettish,  she  was  flirtatious,  and  she  be 
lieved  herself  to  be  merely  matronly,  sister 
ly,  womanly  .  .  . 

She  screamed.  Dwight  was  at  the  gate. 
Now  the  meeting,  exclamation,  banality, 
guffaw  .  .  .  good  will. 

And  Lulu,  peeping  through  the  blind. 


When  "tea"  had  been  experienced  that 
evening,  it  was  found  that  a  light  rain  was 
falling  and  the  Deacons  and  their  guests, 
53 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


the  Plows,  were  constrained  to  remain  in 
the  parlour.  The  Plows  were  gentle,  faint 
ly  lustrous  folk,  sketched  into  life  rather 
lightly,  as  if  they  were,  say,  looking  in  from 
some  other  level. 

"The  only  thing,"  said  Dwight  Herbert, 
"that  reconciles  me  to  rain  is  that  I'm  let 
off  croquet."  He  rolled  his  r's,  a  favourite 
device  of  his  to  induce  humour.  He  called 
it  "croquette."  He  had  never  been  more 
irrepressible.  The  advent  of  his  brother 
was  partly  accountable,  the  need  to  show 
himself  a  fine  family  man  and  host  in  a 
prosperous  little  home — simple  and  pathetic 
desire. 

"Tell  you  what  we'll  do!"  said  Dwight. 
"Nin  and  I'll  reminisce  a  little." 

"Do!"  cried  Mr.  Plow.  This  gentle  fel 
low  was  always  excited  by  life,  so  faintly 
excited  by  him,  and  enjoyed  its  presenta 
tion  in  any  real  form. 

Ninian  had  unerringly  selected  a  dwarf 
rocker,  and  he  was  overflowing  it  and  rock 
ing. 

54 


May 

"Take  this  chair,  do!"  Ina  begged.  "A 
big  chair  for  a  big  man."  She  spoke  as  if 
he  were  about  the  age  of  Monona. 

Ninian  refused,  insisted  on  his  refusal* 
A.  few  years  more,  and  human  relationships 
would  have  spread  sanity  even  to  Ina's 
estate  and  she  would  have  told  him  why 
he  should  exchange  chairs.  As  it  was  she 
forbore,  and  kept  glancing  anxiously  at 
the  over-burdened  little  beast  beneath  him. 

The  child  Monona  entered  the  room.  She 
had  been  driven  down  by  Di  and  Jenny 
Plow,  who  had  vanished  upstairs  and, 
through  the  ventilator,  might  be  heard  in 
a  lift  and  fall  of  giggling.  Monona  had 
also  been  driven  from  the  kitchen  where 
Lulu  was,  for  some  reason,  hurrying 
through  the  dishes.  Monona  now  ran  to 
Mrs.  Bett,  stood  beside  her  and  stared 
about  resentfully.  Mrs.  Bett  was  in  best 
black  and  ruches,  and  she  seized  upon 
Monona  and  patted  her,  as  her  own  form 
of  social  expression;  and  Monona  wriggled 
like  a  puppy,  as  hers. 
55 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Quiet,  pettie,"  said  Ina,  eyebrows  up. 
She  caught  her  lower  lip  in  her  teeth. 

"Well,  sir,"  said  Dwight,  "you  wouldn't 
think  it  to  look  at  us,  but  mother  had  her 
hands  pretty  full,  bringing  us  up." 

Into  Dwight's  face  came  another  look. 
It  was  always  so,  when  he  spoke  of  this 
foster-mother  who  had  taken  these  two  boys 
and  seen  them  through  the  graded  schools. 
This  woman  Dwight  adored,  and  when  he 
spoke  of  her  he  became  his  inner  self. 

"We  must  run  up-state  and  see  her  while 
you're  here,  Nin,"  he  said. 

To  this  Ninian  gave  a  casual  assent,  lack 
ing  his  brother's  really  tender  ardour. 

"Little,"  Dwight  pursued,  "little  did  she 
think  I'd  settle  down  into  a  nice,  quiet,  mar 
ried  dentist  and  magistrate  in  my  town. 
And  Nin  into — say,  Nin,  what  are  you, 
anyway?" 

They  laughed. 

"That's  the  question,"  said  Ninian. 

They  laughed. 

"Maybe,"  Ina  ventured,  "maybe  Ninian 
56 


May 

will  tell  us  something  about  his  travels.  He 
is  quite  a  traveller,  you  know,"  she  said  to 
the  Plows.     "A  regular  Gulliver." 
They  laughed  respectfully. 
"How  we  should  love  it,  Mr.  Deacon," 
Mrs.  Plow  said.     "You  know  we've  never 
seen  very  much." 

Goaded  on,  Ninian  launched  upon  his 
foreign  countries  as  he  had  seen  them: 
Population,  exports,  imports,  soil,  irriga 
tion,  business.  For  the  populations  Ninian 
had  no  respect.  Crops  could  not  touch  ours. 
Soil  mighty  poor  pickings.  And  the  busi 
ness—say!  Those  fellows  don't  know— 
and,  say,  the  hotels!  Don't  say  foreign 
hotel  to  Ninian. 

He  regarded  all  the  alien  earth  as  bar 
barian,  and  he  stoned  it.  He  was  equipped 
for  absolutely  no  intensive  observation.  His 
contacts  were  negligible.  Mrs.  Plow  was 
more  excited  by  the  Deacons'  party  than 
Ninian  had  been  wrought  upon  by  all  his 
voyaging. 

"Tell  you,"  said  Dwight.    "When  we  ran 
57 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


away  that  time  and  went  to  the  state  fair, 

little  did  we  think "     He  told  about 

running  away  to  the  state  fair.  "I  thought," 
he  wound  up,  irrelevantly,  "Ina  and  I  might 
get  over  to  the  other  side  this  year,  but  I 
guess  not.  I  guess  not." 

The  words  give  no  conception  of  their 
effect,  spoken  thus.  For  there  in  Warble- 
ton  these  words  are  not  commonplace.  In 
Warbleton,  Europe  is  never  so  casually 
spoken.  "Take  a  trip  abroad"  is  the  phrase, 
or  "Go  to  Europe"  at  the  very  least,  and 
both  with  empressement.  Dwight  had  some 
where  noted  and  deliberately  picked  up 
that  "other  side"  effect,  and  his  Ina  knew 
this,  and  was  proud.  Her  covert  glance 
about  pensively  covered  her  soft  triumph. 

Mrs.  Bett,  her  arm  still  circling  the  child 
Monona,  now  made  her  first  observation. 

"Pity  not  to  have  went  while  the  going 
was  good,"  she  said,  and  said  no  more. 

Nobody  knew  quite  what  she  meant,  and 
everybody  hoped  for  the  best.  But  Ina 
frowned.  Mamma  did  these  things  occasion- 

58 


May 

ally   when   there   was    company,    and   she 
dared.    She  never  sauced  Dwight  in  private. 

And  it  wasn't  fair,  it  wasn't  fair 

Abruptly  Ninian  rose  and  left  the  room. 


The  "dishes  were  washed.  Lulu  had 
washed  them  at  break-neck  speed— she 
could  not,  or  would  not,  have  told  why. 
But  no  sooner  were  they  finished  and  set 
away  than  Lulu  had  been  attacked  by  an 
unconquerable  inhibition.  And  instead  of 
going  to  the  parlour,  she  sat  down  by  the 
kitchen  window.  She  was  in  her  chally 
gown,  with  her  cameo  pin  and  her  string 
of  coral. 

Laughter  from  the  parlour  mingled  with 
the  laughter  of  Di  and  Jenny  upstairs. 
Lulu  was  now  rather  shy  of  Di.  A  night 
or  two  before,  coming  home  with  "extra" 
cream,  she  had  gone  round  to  the  side-door 
and  had  come  full  upon  Di  and  Bobby, 
seated  on  the  steps.  And  Di  was  saying: 

"Well,  if  I  marry  you,  you've  simply 
59 


Miss  Lulu  Beit 


got  to  be  a  great  man.  I  could  never 
marry  just  anybody.  I'd  smother" 

Lulu  had  heard,  stricken.  She  passed 
them  by,  responding  only  faintly  to  their 
greeting.  Di  was  far  less  taken  aback  than 
Lulu. 

Later  Di  had  said  to  Lulu:  "I  s'pose 
you  heard  what  we  were  saying." 

Lulu,  much  shaken,  had  withdrawn  from 
the  whole  matter  by  a  flat  "no."  "Because," 
she  said  to  herself,  "I  couldn't  have  heard 
right." 

But  since  then  she  had  looked  at  Di  as 
if  Di  were  some  one  else.  Had  not  Lulu 
taught  her  to  make  buttonholes  arid  to  hem 
— oh,  no1  Lulu  could  not  have  heard  prop 
erly. 

"Everybody's  got  somebody  to  be  nice 
to  them,"  she  thought  now,  sitting  by  the 
kitchen  window,  adult  yet  Cinderella. 

She  thought  that  some  one  would  come 
for  her.  Her  mother  or  even  Ina.  Per 
haps  they  would  send  Monona.  She  waited 

60 


May 

at  first  hopefully,  then  resentfully.     The 
grey  rain  wrapped  the  air. 

"Nobody  cares  what  becomes  of  me  after 
they're  fed,"  she  thought,  and  derived  an 
obscure  satisfaction  from  her  phrasing,  and 
thought  it  again. 

Ninian  Deacon  came  into  the  kitchen. 

Her  first  impression  was  that  he  had 
come  to  see  whether  the  dog  had  been  fed. 

"I  fed  him,"  she  said,  and  wished  that 
she  had  been  busy  when  Ninian  entered. 

"Who,  me?"  he  asked.  "You  did  that 
all  right.  Say,  why  in  time  don't  you  come 
in  the  other  room?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know/* 

"Well,  neither  do  I.  I've  kept  think 
ing,  'Why  don't  she  come  along.'  Then  I 
remembered  the  dishes."  He  glanced  about. 
"I  come  to  help  wipe  dishes." 

"Oh!"  she  laughed  so  delicately,  so  de 
lightfully,  one  wondered  where  she  got  it. 

"They're  washed "  she  caught  herself 

at  "long  ago." 

"Well  then,  what  are  you  doing  here?" 
61 


Miss  Lulu  Beit 


"Resting." 

"Rest  in  there."  He  bowed,  crooked  his 
arm.  "Senora,"  he  said, — his  Spanish 
matched  his  other  assimilations  of  travel — 
"Senora.  Allow  me." 

Lulu  rose.  On  his  arm  she  entered  the 
parlour.  Dwight  was  narrating  and  did  not 
observe  that  entrance.  To  the  Plows  it  was 
sufficiently  normal.  But  Ina  looked  up  and 
said: 

"Well!" — in  two  notes,  descending,  curv 
ing. 

Lulu  did  not  look  at  her.  Lulu  sat  in  a 
low  rocker.  Her  starched  white  skirt, 
throwing  her  chally  in  ugly  lines,  revealed 
a  peeping  rim  of  white  embroidery.  Her 
lace  front  wrinkled  when  she  sat,  and  per 
petually  she  adjusted  it.  She  curled  her 
feet  sidewise  beneath  her  chair,  her  long 
wrists  and  veined  hands  lay  along  her  lap 
in  no  relation  to  her.  She  was  tense.  She 
rocked. 

When  Dwight  had  finished  his  narration, 
62 


May 

there  was  a  pause,  broken  at  last  by  Mrs. 
Bett: 

"You  tell  that  better  than  you  used  to 
when  you  started  in  telling  it,"  she  observed. 
"You  got  in  some  things  I  guess  you  used 
to  clean  forget  about.  Monona,  get  off 
my  rocker." 

Monona  made  a  little  whimpering  sound, 
in  pretence  to  tears.  Ina  said  "Darling — 
quiet!" — chin  a  little  lifted,  lower  lip  re 
vealing  lower  teeth  for  the  word's  com 
pletion;  and  she  held  it. 

The  Plows  were  asking  something  about 
Mexico.  Dwight  was  wondering  if  it  would 
let  up  raining  at  all.  Di  and  Jenny  came 
whispering  into  the  room.  But  all  these 
distractions  Ninian  Deacon  swept  aside. 

"Miss  Lulu,"  he  said,  "I  wanted  you  to 
hear  about  my  trip  up  the  Amazon,  be 
cause  I  knew  how  inter-ested  you  are  in 
travels." 

He  talked,  according  to  his  lights,  about 
the  Amazon.     But  the  person  who  most 
enjoyed   the   recital   could   not   afterward 
63 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


have  told  two  words  that  he  said.  Lulu 
kept  the  position  which  she  had  taken  at 
first,  and  she  dare  not  change.  She  saw 
th£  blood  in  the  veins  of  her  hands  and 
wanted  to  hide  them.  She  wondered  if  she 
might  fold  her  arms,  or  have  one  hand  to 
support  her  chin,  gave  it  all  up  and  sat 
motionless,  save  for  the  rocking. 

Then  she  forgot  everything.  For  the 
first  time  in  years  some  one  was  talking 
and  looking  not  only  at  Ina  and  Dwight 
and  their  guests,  but  at  her. 


Ill 

JUNE 


Ill 

JUNE 

ON  a  June  morning  Dwight  Herbert 
Deacon  looked    at  the  sky,  and  said 
with  his  manner  of    originating  it: 
"How  about  a  picnic  this  afternoon?" 
Ina,  with  her  blank,  upward  look,  ex 
claimed:     "To-day f 

"First  class  day,  it  looks  like  to  me." 
Come  to  think  of  it,  Ina  didn't  know  that 
there  was  anything  to  prevent,  but  mercy, 
Herbert  was  so  sudden.  Lulu  began  to 
recite  the  resources  of  the  house  for  a  lunch. 
Meanwhile,  since  the  first  mention  of  picnic, 
the  child  Monona  had  been  dancing  stiffly 
about  the  room,  knees  stiff,  elbows  stiff, 
shoulders  immovable,  her  straight  hair  flap 
ping  about  her  face.  The  sad  dance  of  the 
child  who  cannot  dance  because  she  never 
has  danced.  Di  gave  a  conservative  assent 

67 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


—she  was  at  that  age — and  then  took  ad 
vantage  of  the  family  softness  incident  to  a 
guest  and  demanded  that  Bobby  go  too. 
Ina  hesitated,  partly  because  she  always 
hesitated,  partly  because  she  was  tribal  in 
the  extreme.  "Just  our  little  family  and 
Uncle  Ninian  would  have  been  so  nice,"  she 
sighed,  with  her  consent. 

When,  at  six  o'clock,  Ina  and  Dwight 
and  Ninian  assembled  on  the  porch  and 
Lulu  came  out  with  the  basket,  it  was  seen 
that  she  was  in  a  blue-cotton  house-gown. 

"Look  here,"  said  Ninian,  "aren't  you 
going?" 

"Me?"  said  Lulu.    "Oh,  no." 

"Why  not?" 

"Oh,  I  haven't  been  to  a  picnic  since  I 
can  remember." 

"But  why  not?" 

"Oh,  I  never  think  of  such  a  thing." 

Ninian  waited  for  the  family  to  speak. 
They  did  speak.  Dwight  said: 

c<Lulu's  a  regular  home  body." 
68 


June 

And  Ina  advanced  kindly  with:  "Come 
with  us,  Lulu,  if  you  like." 

"No,"  said  Lulu,  and  flushed.  "Thank 
you,"  she  added,  formally. 

Mrs.  Bett's  voice  shrilled  from  within  the 
house,  startlingly  close — just  beyond  the 
blind,  in  fact: 

"Go  on,  Lulie.  It'll  do  you  good.  ,You 
mind  me  and  go  on." 

"Well,"  said  Ninian,  "that's  what  I  say. 
You  hustle  for  your  hat  and  you  come 
along." 

For  the  first  time  this  course  presented 
itself  to  Lulu  as  a  possibility.  She  stared 
up  at  Ninian. 

"You  can  slip  on  my  linen  duster,  over," 
Ina  said  graciously. 

"Your  new  one?"  Dwight  incredulously 
wished  to  know. 

"Oh,  no!"  Ina  laughed  at  the  idea.  "The 
old  one." 

They  were  having  to  wait  for  Di  in  any 
case — they  always  had  to  wait  for  Di — and 
at  last,  hardly  believing  in  her  own  motions, 

69 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Lulu  was  running  to  make  ready.  Mrs. 
Bett  hurried  to  help  her,  but  she  took  down 
the  wrong  things  and  they  were  both  irri 
tated.  Lulu  reappeared  in  the  linen  duster 
and  a  wide  hat.  There  had  been  no  time 
to  "tighten  up"  her  hair;  she  was  flushed 
at  the  adventure;  she  had  never  looked  so 
well. 

They  started.  Lulu,  falling  in  with 
Monona,  heard  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life,  the  step  of  the  pursuing  male,  choos 
ing  to  walk  beside  her  and  the  little  girl. 
Oh,  would  Ina  like  that?  And  what  did 
Lulu  care  what  Ina  liked?  Monona,  mak 
ing  a  silly,  semi-articulate  observation,  was 
enchanted  to  have  Lulu  burst  into  laughter 
and  squeeze  her  hand. 

Di  contributed  her  bright  presence,  and 
Bobby  Larkin  appeared  from  nowhere,  run 
ning,  with  a  gigantic  bag  of  fruit. 

"Bullylujah!"  he  shouted,  and  Lulu  could 
have  shouted  with  him. 

She  sought  for  some  utterance.  She 
wanted  to  talk  with  Ninian. 

70 


June 

"I  do  hope  we've  brought  sandwiches 
enough,"  was  all  that  she  could  get  to  say. 

They  chose  a  spot,  that  is  to  say  Dwight 
Herbert  chose  a  spot,  across  the  river  and 
up  the  shore  where  there  was  at  that  season 
a  strip  of  warm  beach.  Dwight  Herbert 
declared  himself  the  builder  of  incomparable 
fires,  and  made  a  bad  smudge.  Ninian,  who 
was  a  camper  neither  by  birth  nor  by 
adoption,  kept  offering  brightly  to  help, 
could  think  of  nothing  to  do,  and  presently, 
bethinking  himself  of  skipping  stones,  went 
and  tried  to  skip  them  on  the  flowing  river. 
Ina  cut  her  hand  opening  the  condensed 
milk  and  was  obliged  to  sit  under  a  tree 
and  nurse  the  wound.  Monona  spillecl  all 
the  salt  and  sought  diligently  to  recover  it. 
So  Lulu  did  all  the  work.  As  for  Di  and 
Bobby,  they  had  taken  the  pail  and  gone 
for  water,  discouraging  Monona  from  ac 
companying  them,  discouraging  her  to  the 
point  of  tears.  But  the  two  were  gone  for 
so  long  that  on  their  return  Dwight  was 
hungry  and  cross  and  majestic. 

71 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Those  who  disregard  the  comfort  of 
other  people,"  he  enunciated,  "can  not  ex 
pect  consideration  for  themselves  in  the 
future." 

He  did  not  say  on  what  ethical  tenet  this 
dictum  was  based,  but  he  delivered  it  with 
extreme  authority.  Ina  caught  her  lower 
lip  with  her  teeth,  dipped  her  head,  and 
looked  at  Di.  And  Monona  laughed  like 
a  little  demon. 

As  soon  as  Lulu  had  all  in  readiness,  and 
cold  corned  beef  and  salad  had  begun  their 
orderly  progression,  Dwight  became  the  im 
memorial  dweller  in  green  fastnesses.  He 
began : 

"This  is  ideal.  I  tell  you,  people  don't 
half  know  life  if  they  don't  get  out  and 
eat  in  the  open.  It's  better  than  any  tonic 
at  a  dollar  the  bottle.  Nature's  tonic — 
eh?  Free  as  the  air.  Look  at  that  sky. 
See  that  water.  Could  anything  be  more 
pleasant?" 

He  smiled  at  his  wife.  This  man's  face 
was  glowing  with  simple  pleasure.  He  loved 

72 


June 

the  out-of-doors  with  a  love  which  could 
not  explain  itself.  But  he  now  lost  a 
definite  climax  when  his  wife's  comment 
was  heard  to  be: 

"Monona!  Now  it's  all  over  both  ruffles. 
And  mamma  does  try  so  hard  .  .  .  ' 

After  supper  some  boys  arrived  with  a 
boat  which  they  beached,  and  Dwight,  with 
enthusiasm,  gave  the  boys  ten  cents  for  a 
half  hour's  use  of  that  boat  and  invited 
to  the  waters  his  wife,  his  brother  and  his 
younger  daughter.  Ina  was  timid — not  be 
cause  she  was  afraid  but  because  she  was 
congenitally  timid — with  her  this  was  not  a 
belief  or  an  emotion,  it  was  a  disease. 

"Dwight  darling,  are  you  sure  there's  no 
danger?" 

Why,  none.  None  in  the  world.  Who 
ever  heard  of  drowning  in  a  river. 

"But  you're  not  so  very  used " 

Oh,  wasn't  he?  Who  was  it  that  had 
lived  in  a  boat  throughout  youth  if  not  he? 

Ninian  refused  out-of-hand,  lighted  a 
cigar,  and  sat  on  a  log  in  a  permanent 
78 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


fashion.  Ina's  plump  figure  was  fitted  in 
the  stern,  the  child  Monona  affixed,  and 
the  boat  put  off,  bow  well  out  of  water. 
On  this  pleasure  ride  the  face  of  the  wife 
was  as  the  face  of  the  damned.  It  was 
true  that  she  revered  her  husband's  opinions 
above  those  of  all  other  men.  In  politics, 
in  science,  in  religion,  in  dentistry  she 
looked  up  to  his  dicta  as  to  revelation.  And 
was  he  not  a  magistrate?  But  let  him  take 
oars  in  hand,  or  shake  lines  or  a  whip  above 
the  back  of  any  horse,  and  this  woman 
would  trust  any  other  woman's  husband  by 
preference.  It  was  a  phenomenon. 

Lulu  was  making  the  work  last,  so  that 
she  should  be  out  of  everybody's  way. 
When  the  boat  put  off  without  Ninian,  she 
felt  a  kind  of  terror  and  wished  that  he 
had  gone.  He  had  sat  down  near  her,  and 
she  pretended  not  to  see.  At  last  Lulu 
understood  that  Ninian  was  deliberately 
choosing  to  remain  with  her.  The  languor 
of  his  bulk  after  the  evening  meal  made 

74 


June 

no  explanation  for  Lulu.  She  asked  for  no 
explanation.  He  had  stayed. 

And  they  were  alone.  For  Di,  on  a 
pretext  of  examining  the  flocks  and  herds, 
was  leading  Bobby  away  to  the  pastures, 
a  little  at  a  time. 

The  sun,  now  fallen,  had  left  an  even, 
waxen  sky.  Leaves  and  ferns  appeared 
drenched  with  the  light  just  withdrawn. 
The  hush,  the  warmth,  the  colour,  were 
charged  with  some  influence.  The  air  of 
the  time  communicated  itself  to  Lulu  as 
intense  and  quiet  happiness.  She  had  not 
yet  felt  quiet  with  Ninian.  For  the  first 
time  her  blind  excitement  in  his  presence 
ceased,  and  she  felt  curiously  accustomed 
to  him.  To  him  the  air  of  the  time  im 
parted  itself  in  a  deepening  of  his  facile 
sympathy. 

"Do  you  know  something?"  he  began. 
"I  think  you  have  it  pretty  hard  around 
here." 

"I?"    Lulu  was  genuinely  astonished. 

"Yes,  sir.  Do  you  have  to  work  like  this 
75 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


all  the  time?    I  guess  you  won't  mind  my 
asking." 

"Well,  I  ought  to  work.  I  have  a  home 
with  them.  Mother  too." 

"Yes,  but  glory.  You  ought  to  have 
some  kind  of  a  life  of  your  own.  You  want 
it,  too.  You  told  me  you  did — that  first 
day." 

She  was  silent.  Again  he  was  investing 
her  with  a  longing  which  she  had  never 
really  had,  until  he  had  planted  that  long 
ing.  She  had  wanted  she  knew  not  what. 
Now  she  accepted  the  dim,  the  romantic 
interest  of  this  role. 

"I  guess  you  don't  see  how  it  seems," 
he  said,  "to  me,  coming  along — a  stranger 
so.  I  don't  like  it." 

He  frowned,  regarded  the  river,  flicked 
away  ashes,  his  diamond  obediently  shining. 
Lulu's  look,  her  head  drooping,  had  the 
liquid  air  of  the  look  of  a  young  girl.  For 
the  first  time  in  her  life  she  was  feeling 
her  helplessness.  It  intoxicated  her. 

"They're  very  good  to  me,"  she  said. 
76 


June 

:' 

He  turned.  "Do  you  know  why  you 
think  that?  Because  you've  never  had  any 
body  really  good  to  you.  That's  why." 

"But  they  treat  me  good." 

"They  make  a  slave  of  you.  Regular 
slave."  He  puffed,  frowning.  "Damned 
shame,  I  call  it,"  he  said. 

Her  loyalty  stirred  Lulu.  "We  have 
our  whole  living " 

"And  you  earn  it.  I  been  watching  you 
since  I  been  here.  Don't  you  ever  go  any 
wheres?" 

She  said:  "This  is  the  first  place  in — in 
years." 

"Lord.  Don't  you  want  to?  Of  course 
you  do!" 

"Not  so  much  places  like  this " 

"I  see.  What  you  want  is  to  get  away 
— like  you'd  ought  to."  He  regarded  her. 
"You've  been  a  blamed  fine-looking 
woman,"  he  said. 

She  did  not  flush,  but  that  faint,  unsus 
pected  Lulu  spoke  for  her: 
77 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"You  must  have  been  a  good-looking 
man  once  yourself." 

His  laugh  went  ringing  across  the  water. 
"You're  pretty  good,"  he  said.  He  re 
garded  her  approvingly.  "I  don't  see  how 
you  do  it,"  he  mused,  "blamed  if  I  do." 

"How  I  do  what?" 

"Why  come  back,  quick  like  that,  with 
what  you  say." 

Lulu's  heart  was  beating  painfully.  The 
effort  to  hold  her  own  in  talk  like  this  was 
terrifying.  She  had  never  talked  in  this 
fashion  to  any  one.  It  was  as  if  some  mat 
ter  of  life  or  death  hung  on  her  ability  to 
speak  an  alien  tongue.  And  yet,  when  she 
was  most  at  loss,  that  other  Lulu,  whom 
she  had  never  known  anything  about, 
seemed  suddenly  to  speak  for  her.  As 
now: 

"It's  my  grand  education,"  she  said. 

She  sat  humped  on  the  log,  her  beauti 
ful  hair  shining  in  the  light  of  the  warm 
sky.  She  had  thrown  off  her  hat  and  the 
linen  duster,  and  was  in  her  blue  gingham 

78 


June 

gown  against  the  sky  and  leaves.  But  she 
sat  stiffly,  her  feet  carefully  covered,  her 
hands  ill  at  ease,  her  eyes  rather  piteous  in 
their  hope  somehow  to  hold  her  vague  own. 
Yet  from  her  came  these  sufficient,  in 
souciant  replies. 

"Education,"  he  said  laughing  heartily. 
"That's  mine,  too."  He  spoke  a  creed.  "I 
ain't  never  had  it  and  I  ain't  never  missed 
it." 

"Most  folks  are  happy  without  an  educa 
tion,"  said  Lulu. 

"You're  not  very  happy,  though." 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said. 

"Well,  sir,"  said  Ninian,  "I'll  tell  you 
what  we'll  do.  While  I'm  here  I'm  going 
to  take  you  and  Ina  and  Dwight  up  to  the 
city." 

"To  the  city?" 

"To  a  show.  Dinner  and  a  show.  I'll 
give  you  one  good  time." 

"Oh!"  Lulu  leaned  forward.  "Ina  and 
Dwight  go  sometimes.  I  never  been." 

"Well,  just  you  come  with  me.  I'll  look 
79 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


up  what's  good.  You  tell  me  just  what 
you  like  to  eat,  and  we'll  get  it- 
She  said:  "I  haven't  had  anything  to 
eat  in  years  that  I  haven't  cooked  myself." 
He  planned  for  that  time  to  come,  and 
Lulu  listened  as  one  intensely  experiencing 
every  word  that  he  uttered.  Yet  it  was 
not  in  that  future  merry-making  that  she 
found  her  joy,  but  in  the  consciousness  that 
he — some  one — any  one — was  planning  like 
this  for  her. 

Meanwhile  Di  and  Bobby  had  rounded 
the  corner  by  an  old  hop-house  and  kept 
on  down  the  levee.  Now  that  the  presence 
of  the  others  was  withdrawn,  the  two  looked 
about  them  differently  and  began  them 
selves  to  give  off  an  influence  instead  of 
being  pressed  upon  by  overpowering  per 
sonalities.  Frogs  were  chorusing  in  the 
near  swamp,  and  Bobby  wanted  one.  He 
was  off  after  it.  But  Di  eventually  drew 
him  back,  reluctant,  frogless.  He  entered 
upon  an  exhaustive  account  of  the  use  of 
frogs  for  bait,  and  as  he  talked  he  con- 

80 


June 

stantly  flung  stones.  Di  grew  restless. 
There  was,  she  had  found,  a  certain  amount 
of  this  to  be  gone  through  before  Bobby 
would  focus  on  the  personal.  At  length 
she  was  obliged  to  say,  "Like  me  to-day  ?" 
And  then  he  entered  upon  personal  talk 
with  the  same  zest  with  which  he  had  dis 
cussed  bait. 

"Bobby,"  said  Di,  "sometimes  I  think 
we  might  be  married,  and  not  wait  for  any 
old  money." 

They  had  now  come  that  far.  It  was 
partly  an  authentic  attraction,  grown  from 
out  the  old  repulsion,  and  partly  it  was 
that  they  both — and  especially  Di — so  much 
wanted  the  experiences  of  attraction  that 
they  assumed  its  ways.  And  then  each 
cared  enough  to  assume  the  pretty  role  re 
quired  by  the  other,  and  by  the  occasion, 
and  by  the  air  of  the  time. 

"Would  you?"  asked  Bobby— but  in  the 
subjunctive. 

She  said:   "Yes.    I  will." 
81 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"It  would  mean  running  away,  wouldn't 
it?"  said  Bobby,  still  subjunctive. 

"I  suppose  so.  Mamma  and  papa  are  so 
unreasonable." 

"Di,"  said  Bobby,  "I  don't  believe  you 
could  ever  be  happy  with  me.'' 

"The  idea!  I  can  too.  You're  going  to 
be  a  great  man — you  know  you  are." 

Bobby  was  silent.  Of  course  he  knew  it 
— but  he  passed  it  over. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  fun  to  elope  and  sur 
prise  the  whole  school?"  said  Di,  sparkling. 

Bobby  grinned  appreciatively.  He  was 
good  to  look  at,  with  his  big  frame,  his  head 
of  rough  dark  hair,  the  sky  warm  upon  his 
clear  skin  and  full  mouth.  Di  suddenly  an 
nounced  that  she  would  be  willing  to  elope 
now. 

"I've  planned  eloping  lots  of  times,"  she 
said  ambiguously. 

It  flashed  across  the  mind  of  Bobby  that 
in  these  plans  of  hers  he  may  not  always 
have  been  the  principal,  and  he  could  not 

82 


June 

be  sure  .  .  .  But  she  talked  in  nothings, 
and  he  answered  her  so. 

Soft  cries  sounded  in  the  centre  of  the 
stream.  The  boat,  well  out  of  the  strong 
current,  was  seen  to  have  its  oars  shipped; 
and  there  sat  Dwight  Herbert  gently  rock 
ing  the  boat.  Dwight  Herbert  would. 

"Bertie,  Bertie — please!"  you  heard  his 
Ina  say. 

Monona  began  to  cry,  and  her  father 
was  irritated,  felt  that  it  would  be  ignomini 
ous  to  desist,  and  did  not  know  that  he  felt 
this.  But  he  knew  that  he  was  annoyed, 
and  he  took  refuge  in  this,  and  picked  up 
the  oars  with:  "Some  folks  never  can  en 
joy  anything  without  spoiling  it." 

"That's  what  I  was  thinking,"  said  Ina, 
with  a  flash  of  anger. 

They  glided  toward  the  shore  in  a  huff. 
Monona  found  that  she  enjoyed  crying 
across  the  water  and  kept  it  up.  It  was 
almost  as  good  as  an  echo.  Ina,  stepping 
safe  to  the  sands,  cried  ungratefully  that 
this  was  the  last  time  that  she  would  ever, 

83 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


ever  go  with  her  husband  anywhere.  Ever. 
Dwight  Herbert,  recovering,  gauged  the 
moment  to  require  of  him  humour,  and 
observed  that  his  wedded  wife  was  as 
skittish  as  a  colt.  Ina  kept  silence,  head 
poised  so  that  her  full  little  chin  showed 
double.  Monona,  who  had  previously 
hidden  a  cooky  in  her  frock,  now  remem 
bered  it  and  crunched  sidewise,  the  eyes 
ruminant. 

Moving  toward  them,  with  Di,  Bobby 
was  suddenly  overtaken  by  the  sense  of  dis 
liking  them  all.  He  never  had  liked  Dwight 
Herbert,  his  employer.  Mrs.  Deacon 
seemed  to  him  so  overwhelmingly  mature 
that  he  had  no  idea  how  to  treat  her.  And 
the  child  Monona  he  would  like  to  roll  in 
the  river.  Even  Di  .  .  .  He  fell  silent,  was 
silent  on  the  walk  home  which  was  the 
signal  for  Di  to  tease  him  steadily.  The 
little  being  was  afraid  of  silence.  It  was 
too  vast  for  her.  She  was  like  a  butterfly 
in  a  dome. 

But  against  that  background  of  ruined 
84 


June 

occasion,  Lulu  walked  homeward  beside 
Ninian.  And  all  that  night,  beside  her 
mother  who  groaned  in  her  sleep,  Lulu  lay 
tense  and  awake.  He  had  walked  home 
with  her.  He  had  told  Ina  and  Herbert 
about  going  to  the  city.  What  did  it  mean? 
Suppose  .  .  .  oh  no;  oh  no! 

"Either  lay  still  or  get  up  and  set  up," 
Mrs.  Bett  directed  her  at  length. 


IV 

JULY 


IV 

JULY 

WHEN,  on  a  warm  evening  a  fort 
night  later,  Lulu  descended  the 
stairs  dressed  for  her  incredible  trip 
to  the  city,  she  wore  the  white  waist  which 
she  had  often  thought  they  would  "use" 
for  her  if  she  died.  And  really,  the  waist 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  planned  for  the 
purpose,  and  its  wide,  upstanding  plaited 
lace  at  throat  and  wrist  made  her  neck  look 
thinner,  her  forearm  sharp  and  veined. 
Her  hair  she  had  "crimped"  and  parted  in 
the  middle,  puffed  high — it  was  so  that  hair 
had  been  worn  in  Lulu's  girlhood. 

"Well!"  said  Ina,  when  she  saw  this 
coiffure,  and  frankly  examined  it,  head  well 
back,  tongue  meditatively  teasing  at  her 
lower  lip. 

89 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


For  travel  Lulu  was  again  wearing  Ina's 
linen  duster — the  old  one. 

Ninian  appeared,  in  a  sack  coat — and  his 
diamond.  His  distinctly  convex  face,  its 
thick,  rosy  flesh,  thick  mouth  and  cleft  chin 
gave  Lulu  once  more  that  bold  sense  of 
looking — not  at  him,  for  then  she  was  shy 
and  averted  her  eyes — but  at  his  photo 
graph  at  which  she  could  gaze  as  much  as 
she  would.  She  looked  up  at  him  openly, 
fell  in  step  beside  him.  Was  he  not  taking 
her  to  the  city?  Ina  and  D wight  them 
selves  were  going  because  she,  Lulu,  had 
brought  about  this  party. 

"Act  as  good  as  you  look,  Lulie,"  Mrs. 
Bett  called  after  them.  She  gave  no  in 
structions  to  Ina  who  was  married  and  able 
to  shine  in  her  conduct,  it  seemed. 

Dwight  was  cross.  On  the  way  to  the 
station  he  might  have  been  heard  to  take 
it  up  again,  whatever  it  was,  and  his  Ina 
unmistakably  said:  "Well,  now  don't  keep 
it  going  all  the  way  there";  and  turned 
back  to  the  others  with  some  elaborate  com- 

90 


July 

ment  about  the  dust,  thus  cutting  off  her 
so-called  lord  from  his  legitimate  retort. 
A  mean  advantage. 

The  city  was  two  hours'  distant,  and 
they  were  to  spend  the  night.  On  the  train, 
in  the  double  seat,  Ninian  beside  her  among 
the  bags,  Lulu  sat  in  the  simple  conscious 
ness  that  the  people  all  knew  that  she  too 
had  been  chosen.  A  man  and  a  woman  were 
opposite,  with  their  little  boy  between  them. 
Lulu  felt  this  woman's  superiority  of  ex 
perience  over  her  own,  and  smiled  at  her 
from  a  world  of  fellowship.  But  the  woman 
lifted  her  eyebrows  and  stared  and  turned 
away,  with  slow  and  insolent  winking. 

Ninian  had  a  boyish  pride  in  his  knowl 
edge  of  places  to  eat  in  many  cities — as 
if  he  were  leading  certain  of  the  tribe  to 
a  deer-run  in  a  strange  wood.  Ninian  took 
his  party  to  a  downtown  cafe,  then  popular 
among  business  and  newspaper  men.  The 
place  was  below  the  sidewalk,  was  reached 
by  a  dozen  marble  steps,  and  the  odour  of 
its  griddle-cakes  took  the  air  of  the  street. 

91 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Ninian  made  a  great  show  of  selecting  a 
table,  changed  once,  called  the  waiter  "my 
man"  and  rubbed  soft  hands  on  "What  do 
you  say?  Shall  it  be  lobster?"  He  ordered 
the  dinner,  instructing  the  waiter  with 
painstaking  gruffness. 

"Not  that  they  can  touch  your  cooking 
here,  Miss  Lulu,"  he  said,  settling  himself 
to  wait,  and  crumbling  a  crust. 

D wight,  expanding  a  bit  in  the  aura  of 
the  food,  observed  that  Lulu  was  a  regular 
chef,  that  was  what  Lulu  was.  He  still 
would  not  look  at  his  wife,  who  now  re 
marked: 

"ShefF,  Dwightie.     Not  cheff." 

This  was  a  mean  advantage,  which  he 
pretended  not  to  hear — another  mean  ad 
vantage. 

"Ina,"  said  Lulu,  "your  hat's  just  a 
little  mite — no,  over  the  other  way." 

"Was  there  anything  to  prevent  your 
speaking  of  that  before?"  Ina  inquired 
acidly. 

92 


July 

"I  started  to  and  then  somebody  always 
said  something,"  said  Lulu  humbly. 

Nothing  could  so  much  as  cloud  Lulu's 
hour.  She  was  proof  against  any  shadow. 

"Say,  but  you  look  tremendous  to-night," 
Dwight  observed  to  her. 

Understanding  perfectly  that  this  was 
said  to  tease  his  wife,  Lulu  yet  flushed  with 
pleasure.  She  saw  two  women  watching, 
and  she  thought:  "They're  feeling  sorry 
for  Ina — nobody  talking  to  her."  She 
laughed  at  everything  that  the  men  said. 
She  passionately  wanted  to  talk  herself. 
"How  many  folks  keep  going  past,"  she 
said,  many  times. 

At  length,  having  noted  the  details  of 
all  the  clothes  in  range,  Ina's  isolation 
palled  upon  her  and  she  set  herself  to  take 
Niman's  attention.  She  therefore  talked 
with  him  about  himself. 

"Curious  you've  never  married,  Nin," 
she  said. 

"Don't  say  it  like  that,"  he  begged.  "I 
might  yet." 

98 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Ina  laughed  enjoyably.  "Yes,  you 
might!"  she  met  thi3. 

"She  wants  everybody  to  get  married, 
but  she  wishes  I  hadn't,"  Dwight  threw 
in  with  exceeding  rancour. 

They  developed  this  theme  exhaustively, 
Dwight  usually  speaking  in  the  third  per 
son  and  always  with  his  shoulder  turned  a 
bit  from  his  wife.  It  was  inconceivable,  the 
gusto  with  which  they  proceeded.  Ina  had 
assumed  for  the  purpose  an  air  distrait, 
casual,  attentive  to  the  scene  about  them. 
But  gradually  her  cheeks  began  to  burn. 

"She'll  cry,"  Lulu  thought  in  alarm, 
and  said  at  random:  "Ina,  that  hat  is  so 
pretty — ever  so  much  prettier  than  the  old 
one."  But  Ina  said  frostily  that  she  never 
saw  anything  the  matter  with  the  old  one. 

"Let  us  talk,"  said  Ninian  low,  to  Lulu. 
"Then  they'll  simmer  down." 

He  went  on,  in  an  undertone,  about 
nothing  in  particular.  Lulu  hardly  heard 
what  he  said,  it  was  so  pleasant  to  have 
him  talking  to  her  in  this  confidential 

94 


July 

fashion;  and  she  was  pleasantly  aware  that 
his  manner  was  open  to  misinterpretation. 
In  the  nick  of  time,  the  lobster  was  served. 


Dinner  and  the  play — the  show,  as 
Ninian  called  it.  This  show  was  "Peter 
Pan,"  chosen  by  Ninian  because  the  seats 
cost  the  most  of  those  at  any  theatre.  It 
was  almost  indecent  to  see  how  Dwight  Her 
bert,  the  immortal  soul,  had  warmed  and 
melted  at  these  contacts.  By  the  time  that 
all  was  over,  and  they  were  at  the  hotel  for 
supper,  such  was  his  pleasurable  excitation 
that  he  was  once  more  playful,  teasing,  once 
more  the  irrepressible.  But  now  his  Ina 
was  to  be  won  back,  made  it  evident  that 
she  was  not  one  lightly  to  overlook,  and  a 
fine  firmness  sat  upon  the  little  doubling 
chin. 

They  discussed  the  play.  Not  one  of 
them  had  understood  the  story.  The  dog- 
kennel  part — wasn't  that  the  queerest  thing? 
Nothing  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  play. 

95 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"I  was  for  the  pirates.  The  one  with 
the  hook — he  was  my  style,"  said  Dwight. 

"Well,  there  it  is  again,"  Ina  cried. 
"They  didn't  belong  to  the  real  play, 
either." 

"Oh,  well,"  Ninian  said,  "they  have  to 
put  in  parts,  I  suppose,  to  catch  everybody. 
Instead  of  a  song  and  dance,  they  do  that." 

"And  I  didn't  understand,"  said  Ina, 
"why  they  all  clapped  when  the  principal 
character  ran  down  front  and  said  some 
thing  to  the  audience  that  time.  But  they 
aU  did." 

Ninian  thought  this  might  have  been  out 
of  compliment.  Ina  wished  thai  Monona 
might  have  seen,  confessed  that  the  last  part 
was  so  pretty  that  she  herself  would  not 
look;  and  into  Ina's  eyes  came  their  love 
liest  light. 

Lulu  sat  there,  hearing  the  talk  about 
the  play.  "Why  couldn't  I  have  said  that?" 
she  thought  as  the  others  spoke.  All  that 
they  said  seemed  to  her  apropos,  but  she 
could  think  of  nothing  to  add.  The  eve- 

96 


July 

ning  had  been  to  her  a  light  from  heaven 
— how  could  she  find  anything  to  say?  She 
sat  in  a  daze  of  happiness,  her  mind  hardly 
operative,  her  look  moving  from  one  to  an 
other.  At  last  Ninian  looked  at  her. 

"Sure  you  liked  it,  Miss  Lulu?" 

"Oh,  yes!  I  think  they  all  took  their 
parts  real  well." 

It  was  not  enough.  She  looked  at  them 
appealingly,  knowing  that  she  had  not  said 
enough. 

"You  could  hear  everything  they  said," 

she  added.     "It  was "   she  dwindled  to 

silence. 

Dwight  Herbert  savoured  his  rarebit 
with  a  great  show  of  long  wrinkled  dimples. 

"Excellent  sauces  they  make  here — ex 
cellent,"  he  said,  with  the  frown  of  an 
epicure.  "A  tiny  wee  bit  more  Athabasca," 
he  added,  and  they  all  laughed  and  told 
him  that  Athabasca  was  a  lake,  of  course. 
Of  course  he  meant  tobasco,  Ina  said.  Their 
entertainment  and  their  talk  was  of  this 
sort,  for  an  hour. 

97 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Well,  now,"  said  Dwight  Herbert  when 
it  was  finished,  "somebody  dance  on  the 
table." 

"Dwightiel" 

"Got  to  amuse  ourselves  somehow.  Come, 
liven  up.  They'll  begin  to  read  the  funeral 


service  over  us." 


"Why  not  say  the  wedding  service?" 
asked  Ninian. 

In  the  mention  of  wedlock  there  was  al 
ways  something  stimulating  to  Dwight, 
something  of  overwhelming  humour.  He 
shouted  a  derisive  endorsement  of  this  pro 
posal. 

"I  shouldn't  object,"  said  Ninian. 
"Should  you,  Miss  Lulu?" 

Lulu  now  burned  the  slow  red  of  her 
torture.  They  were  all  looking  at  her. 
She  made  an  anguished  effort  to  defend 
herself. 

"I  don't  know  it,"  she  said,  "so  I  can't 
say  it." 

Ninian  leaned  toward  her. 

"I,  Ninian,  take  thee,  Lulu,  to  be  my 
98 


July 

wedded  wife,"  he  pronounced.  "That's  the 
way  it  goes!" 

"Lulu  daren't  say  it!"  crie<J  Dwight.  He 
laughed  so  loudly  that  those  at  the  near 
tables  turned.  And,  from  the  fastness  of 
her  wifehood  and  motherhood,  Ina  laughed. 
Really,  it  was  ridiculous  to  think  of  Lulu 
that  way  .  .  . 

Ninian  laughed  too.  "Course  she  don't 
dare  say  it,"  he  challenged. 

From  within  Lulu,  that  strange  Lulu, 
that  other  Lulu  who  sometimes  fought  her 
battles,  suddenly  spoke  out: 

"I,  Lulu,  take  thee,  Ninian,  to  be  my 
wedded  husband." 

"You  will?"  Ninian  cried. 

"I  will,"  she  said,  laughing  tremulously, 
to  prove  that  she  too  could  join  in,  could 
be  as  merry  as  the  rest. 

"And  I  will.  There,  by  Jove,  now  have 
we  entertained  you,  or  haven't  we?"  Ninian 
laughed  and  pounded  his  soft  fist  on  the 
table. 

"Oh,  say,  honestly!"  Ina  was  shocked.  "I 
99 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


don't  think  you  ought  to — holy  things — i 
what's  the  matter,  Dwightie?" 

Dwight  Herbert  Deacon's  eyes  were  star 
ing  and  his  face  was  scarlet. 

"Say,  by  George,"  he  said,  "a  civil  wed 
ding  is  binding  in  this  state." 

"A  civil  wedding?  Oh,  well "  Ninian 

dismissed  it. 

"But  I,"  said  Dwight,  "happen  to  be  a 
magistrate." 

They  looked  at  one  another  foolishly. 
Dwight  sprang  up  with  the  indeterminate 
idea  of  inquiring  something  of  some  one, 
circled  about  and  returned.  Ina  had  taken 
his  chair  and  sat  clasping  Lulu's  hand. 
Ninian  continued  to  laugh. 

"I  never  saw  one  done  so  offhand,"  said 
Dwight.  "But  what  you've  said  is  all  you 
have  to  say  according  to  law.  And  there 
don't  have  to  be  witnesses  .  .  .  say!"  he 
said,  and  sat  down  again. 

Above  that  shroud-like  plaited  lace,  the 
veins  of  Lulu's  throat  showed  dark  as  she 
100 


July 

swallowed,   cleared   her  throat,   swallowed 
again. 

"Don't  you  let  Dwight  scare  you,"  she 
besought  Ninian. 

"Scare  me!"  cried  Ninian.  "Why,  I 
think  it's  a  good  job  done,  if  you  'ask 


me. 


Lulu's   eyes   flew  to  his   face.     As  he 
laughed,  he  was  looking  at  her,  and  now 
he  nodded  and  shut  and  opened  his  eyes 
several  times  very  fast.     Their  points  of 
light  flickered.     With  a  pang  of  wonder 
which  pierced  her  and  left  her  shaken,  Lulu 
looked.     His  eyes  continued  to  meet  her 
own.     It  was  exactly  like  looking  at  his 
photograph. 

Dwight  had  recovered  his  authentic  air. 
"Oh,  well,"  he  said,  "we  can  inquire  at 
our  leisure.     If  it  is  necessary,  I  should 
say  we  can  have  it  set  aside  quietly  up  here 
mthe  city— no  one'll  be  the  wiser." 

"Set  aside  nothing!"  said  Ninian.     "I'd 
like  to  see  it  stand." 

"Are  you  serious,  Nin?" 
101 


Miss.  L*ulu  Bett 


"Sure  I'm  serious." 

Ina  jerked  gently  at  her  sister's  arm. 

"Lulu!  You  hear  him?  What  you  go 
ing  to  say  to  that?" 

Lulu  shook  her  head.  "He  isn't  in  earn 
est,"  she  said. 

"I  am  in  earnest — hope  to  die,"  Ninian 
declared.  He  was  on  two  legs  of  his  chair 
and  was  slightly  tilting,  so  that  the  effect 
of  his  earnestness  was  impaired.  But  he 
was  obviously  in  earnest. 

They  were  looking  at  Lulu  again.  And 
now  she  looked  at  Ninian,  and  there  was 
something  terrible  in  that  look  which  tried 
to  ask  him,  alone,  about  this  thing. 

D wight  exploded.  "There  was  a  fellow 
I  know  there  in  the  theatre,"  he  cried.  "I'll 
get  him  on  the  line.  He  could  tell  me  if 
there's  any  way "  and  was  off. 

Ina  inexplicably  began  touching  away 
tears.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "what  will  mamma 
say?" 

Lulu  hardly  heard  her.  Mrs.  Bett  was 
incalculably  distant. 

102 


July 

"You  sure?"  Lulu  said  low  to  Ninian. 

For  the  first  time,  something  in  her  ex 
ceeding  isolation  really  touched  him. 

"Say,"  he  said,  "you  come  on  with  me. 
We'll  have  it  done  over  again  somewhere, 
if  you  say  so." 

"Oh,"  said  Lulu,  "if  I  thought " 

He  leaned  and  patted  her  hand. 

"Good  girl,"  he  said. 

They  sat  silent,  Ninian  padding  on  the 
cloth  with  the  flat  of  his  plump  hands. 

D wight  returned.  "It's  a  go  all  right," 
he  said.  He  sat  down,  laughed  weakly, 
rubbed  at  his  face.  "You  two  are  tied  as 
tight  as  the  church  could  tie  you." 

"Good  enough,"  said  Ninian.  "Eh, 
Lulu?" 

"It's — it's  all  right,  I  guess,"  Lulu  said. 

"Well,  I'll  be  dished,"  said  Dwight. 

"Sister!"  said  Ina. 

Ninian  meditated,  his  lips  set  tight  and 
high.  It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  pro 
cesses  of  this  man.  Perhaps  they  were  all 
compact  of  the  devil-may-care  attitude  en- 
103 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


gendered  in  any  persistent  traveller.  Per 
haps  the  incomparable  cookery  of  Lulu 
played  its  part. 

"I  was  going  to  make  a  trip  south  this 
month,"  he  said,  "on  my  way  home  from 
here.  Suppose  we  get  married  again  by 
somebody  or  other,  and  start  right  off. 
You'd  like  that,  wouldn't  you — going 
South?" 

"Yes,"  said  Lulu  only. 

"It's  July,"  said  Ina,  with  her  sense  of 
fitness,  but  no  one  heard. 

It  was  arranged  that  their  trunks  should 
follow  them — Ina  would  see  to  that,  though 
she  was  scandalised  that  they  were  not  first 
to  return  to  Warbleton  for  the  blessing  of 
Mrs.  Bett. 

"Mamma  won't  mind,"  said  Lulu. 
"Mamma  can't  stand  a  fuss  any  more." 

They  left  the  table.  The  men  and  women 
still  sitting  at  the  other  tables  saw  noth 
ing  unusual  about  these  four,  indifferently 
dressed,  indifferently  conditioned.  The 
104 


July 

hotel  orchestra,  playing  ragtime  in  deafen 
ing  concord,  made  Lulu's  wedding  march. 


It  was  still  early  next  day — a  hot  Sun 
day — when  Ina  and  Dwight  reached  home. 
Mrs.  Bett  was  standing  on  the  porch. 

"Where's  Lulie?"  asked  Mrs.  Bett. 

They  told. 

Mrs.  Bett  took  it  in,  a  bit  at  a  time.  Her 
pale  eyes  searched  their  faces,  she  shook 
her  head,  heard  it  again,  grasped  it.  Her 
first  question  was: 

"Who's  going  to  do  your  work?" 

Ina  had  thought  of  that,  and  this  was 
manifest. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "you  and  I'll  have  to 
manage." 

Mrs.  Bett  meditated,  frowning. 

"I  left  the  bacon  for  her  to  cook  for  your 
breakfasts,"  she  said.  "I  can't  cook  bacon 
fit  to  eat.  Neither  can  you." 

"We've  had  our  breakfasts,"  Ina  escaped 
from  this  dilemma. 

105 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Had  it  up  in  the  city,  on  expense?" 

"Well,  we  didn't  have  much." 

In  Mrs.  Bett's  eyes  tears  gathered,  but 
they  were  not  for  Lulu. 

"I  should  think,"  she  said,  "I  should 
think  Lulie  might  have  had  a  little  more 
gratitude  to  her  than  this." 

On  their  way  to  church  Ina  and  Dwight 
encountered  Di,  who  had  left  the  house 
some  time  earlier,  stepping  sedately  to 
church  in  company  with  Bobby  Larkin. 
Di  was  in  white,  and  her  face  was  the 
face  of  an  angel,  so  young,  so  question 
ing,  so  utterly  devoid  of  her  sophistica 
tion. 

"That  child,"  said  Ina,  "must  not  see  so 
much  of  that  Larkin  boy.  She's  just  a 
little,  little  girl." 

"Of  course  she  mustn't,"  said  Dwight 
sharply,  "and  if  I  was  her  mother 

"Oh  stop  that!"  said  Ina,  sotto  voce,  at 
the  church  steps. 

To  every  one  with  whom  they  spoke  in 
the  aisle  after  church,  Ina  announced  their 
106 


July 

news:  Had  they  heard?  Lulu  married 
Dwight's  brother  Ninian  in  the  city  yester 
day.  Oh,  sudden,  yes!  And  romantic  .  .  . 
spoken  with  that  upward  inflection  to  which 
Ina  was  a  prey. 


V 

AUGUST 


V 

AUGUST 

MRS.  BETT  had  been  having  a 
"tantrim,"  brought  on  by  nothing 
definable.  Abruptly  as  she  and 
Ina  were  getting  supper,  Mrs.  Bett  had 
fallen  silent,  had  in  fact  refused  to  reply 
when  addressed.  When  all  was  ready  and 
Dwight  was  entering,  hair  wetly  brushed, 
she  had  withdrawn  from  the  room  and 
closed  her  bedroom  door  until  it  echoed. 

"She's  got  one  again,"  said  Ina,  griev 
ing.  "Dwight,  you  go." 

He  went,  showing  no  sign  of  annoyance, 
and  stood  outside  his  mother-in-law's  door 
and  knocked. 

No  answer. 

"Mother,  come  and  have  some  supper." 

No  answer. 

"Looks  to  me  like  your  muffins  was  just 
about  the  best  ever." 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


No  answer. 

"Come  on — I  had  something  funny  to  tell 
you  and  Ina." 

He  retreated,  knowing  nothing  of  the 
admirable  control  exercised  by  this  woman 
for  her  own  passionate  satisfaction  in  send 
ing  him  away  unsatisfied.  He  showed 
nothing  but  anxious  concern,  touched  with 
regret,  at  his  failure.  Ina,  too,  returned 
from  that  door  discomfited.  Dwight  made 
a  gallant  effort  to  retrieve  the  fallen  for 
tunes  of  their  evening  meal,  and  turned 
upon  Di,  who  had  just  entered,  and  with 
exceeding  facetiousness  inquired  how 
Bobby  was. 

Di  looked  hunted.  She  could  never  tell 
whether  her  parents  were  going  to  tease 
her  about  Bobby,  or  rebuke  her  for  being 
seen  with  him.  It  depended  on  mood,  and 
this  mood  Di  had  not  the  experience  to 
gauge.  She  now  groped  for  some  neutral 
fact,  and  mentioned  that  he  was  going  to 
take  her  and  Jenny  for  ice  cream  that 
night. 

112 


August 


Ina's  irritation  found  just  expression  in 
her  office  of  motherhood. 

"I  won't  have  you  downtown  in  the  eve 
ning,"  she  said. 

"But  you  let  me  go  last  night/' 

"All  the  better  reason  why  you  should 
not  go  to-night." 

"I  tell  you,"  cried  Dwight.  "Why  not 
all  walk  down?  Why  not  all  have  ice 
cream  .  .  .  He  was  all  gentleness  and 
propitiation,  the  reconciling  element  in  his 
home. 

"Me  too?"  Monona's  ardent  hope,  her 
terrible  fear  were  in  her  eyebrows,  her 
parted  lips. 

"You  too,  certainly."  Dwight  could  not 
do  enough  for  every  one. 

Monona  clapped  her  hands.  "Goody! 
goody!  Last  time  you  wouldn't  let  me 

go." 

"That's  why  papa's  going  to  take  you 
this  time,"  Ina  said. 

These  ethical  balances  having  been  nicely 
struck,  Ina  proposed  another: 
113 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"But,"  she  said,  "but,  you  must  eat  more 
supper  or  you  can  not  go." 

"I  don't  want  any  more."  Monona's 
look  was  honest  and  piteous. 

"Makes  no  difference.  You  must  eat 
or  you'll  get  sick." 

"No!" 

"Very  well,  then.  No  ice  cream  soda  for 
such  a  little  girl." 

Monona  began  to  cry  quietly.  But  she 
passed  her  plate.  She  ate,  chewing  high, 
and  slowly. 

"See?  She  can  eat  if  she  will  eat,"  Ina 
said  to  Dwight.  "The  only  trouble  is,  she 
will  not  take  the  time." 

"She  don't  put  her  mind  on  her  meals," 
Dwight  Herbert  diagnosed  it.  "Oh,  bigger 
bites  than  that!"  he  encouraged  his  little 
daughter. 

Di's  mind  had  been  proceeding  along  its 
own  paths. 

"Are  you  going  to  take  Jenny  and 
Bobby  too?"  she  inquired. 

"Certainly.    The  whole  party.'* 
114 


August 


"Bobby'll  want  to  pay  for  Jenny  and  I." 

"Me,  darling,"  said  Ina  patiently, 
punctiliously — and  less  punctiliously  added: 
"Nonsense.  This  is  going  to  be  papa's 
little  party." 

"But  we  had  the  engagement  with  Bobby. 
It  was  an  engagement." 

"Well,"  said  Ina,  "I  think  we'll  just  set 
that  aside — that  important  engagement.  I 
think  we  just  will." 

"Papa!  Bobby'll  want  to  be  the  one  to 
pay  for  Jenny  and  I " 

"Di!"  Ina's  voice  dominated  all.  "Will 
you  be  more  careful  of  your  grammar  or 
shall  I  speak  to  you  again?" 

"Well,  I'd  rather  use  bad  grammar  than 
— than — than—  she  looked  resentfully 
at  her  mother,  her  father.  Their  moral  de 
fection  was  evident  to  her,  but  it  was  in 
definable.  They  told  her  that  she  ought 
to  be  ashamed  when  papa  wanted  to  give 
them  all  a  treat.  She  sat  silent,  frowning, 
put-upon. 

"Look,  mamma!"   cried  Monona,   swal- 
115 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


lowing  a  third  of  an  egg  at  one  impulse. 
Ina  saw  only  the  empty  plate. 

"Mamma's  nice  little  girl!"  cried  she, 
shining  upon  her  child. 

The  rules  of  the  ordinary  sports  of  the 
playground,  scrupulously  applied,  would 
have  clarified  the  ethical  atmosphere  of  this 
little  family.  But  there  was  no  one  to  ap 
ply  them. 


When  Di  and  Monona  had  been  excused, 
D wight  asked: 

"Nothing  new  from  the  bride  and 
groom?" 

"No.  And,  Dwight,  it's  been  a  week  since 
the  last." 

"See — where  were  they  then?" 

He  knew  perfectly  well  that  they  were  in 
Savannah,  Georgia,  but  Ina  played  his 
game,  told  him,  and  retold  bits  that  the 
letter  had  said. 

"I  don't  understand,"  she  added,  "why 
116 


August 


they  should  go  straight  to  Oregon  without 
coming  here  first." 

Dwight  hazarded  that  Nin  probably  had 
to  get  back,  and  shone  pleasantly  in  the 
reflected  importance  of  a  brother  filled  with 
affairs. 

"I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  Lulu's 

letters,"    Ina    proceeded.      "They're    so — • 

» 

"You  haven't  had  but  two,  have  you?" 
"That's  all — well,  of  course  it's  only  been 

month.      But    both    letters    have    been 

?> 

Ina  was  never  really  articulate.  What 
ever  corner  of  her  brain  had  the  blood  in  it 
at  the  moment  seemed  to  be  operative,  and 
she  let  the  matter  go  at  that. 

"I  don't  think  it's  fair  to  mamma — going 
off  that  way.  Leaving  her  own  mother. 
Why,  she  may  never  see  mamma  again — " 
Ina's  breath  caught.  Into  her  face  came 
something  of  the  lovely  tenderness  with 
which  she  sometimes  looked  at  Monona  and 
Di.  She  sprang  up.  She  had  forgotten  to 
117 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


put  some  supper  to  warm  for  mamma.  The 
lovely  light  was  still  in  her  face  as  she 
bustled  about  against  the  time  of  mamma's 
recovery  from  her  tantrim.  Dwight's  face 
was  like  this  when  he  spoke  of  his  foster- 
mother.  In  both  these  beings  there  was 
something  which  functioned  as  pure  love. 

Mamma  had  recovered  and  was  eating 
cold  scrambled  eggs  on  the  corner  of  the 
kitchen  table  when  the  ice  cream  soda  party 
was  ready  to  set  out.  D wight  threw  her 
a  casual  "Better  come,  too,  Mother  Bett," 
but  she  shook  her  head.  She  wished  to  go, 
wished  it  with  violence,  but  she  contrived  to 
give  to  her  arbitrary  refusal  a  quality  of 
contempt.  When  Jenny  arrived  with  Bob 
by,  she  had  brought  a  sheaf  of  gladioli  for 
Mrs.  Bett,  and  took  them  to  her  in  the 
kitchen,  and  as  she  laid  the  flowers  beside 
her,  the  young  girl  stopped  and  kissed  her. 
"You  little  darling!"  cried  Mrs.  Bett,  and 
clung  to  her,  her  lifted  eyes  lit  by  some 
thing  intense  and  living.  But  when  the  ice 
cream  party  had  set  off  at  last,  Mrs.  Bett 
118 


•  August 


left  her  supper,  gathered  up  the  flowers, 
and  crossed  the  lawn  to  the  old  cripple, 
Grandma  Gates. 

"Inie  sha'n't  have  'em,"  the  old  woman 
thought. 

And  then  it  was  quite  beautiful  to  watch 
her  with  Grandma  Gates,  whom  she  tended 
and  petted,  to  whose  complainings  she  lis 
tened,  and  to  whom  she  tried  to  tell  the 
small  events  of  her  day.  When  her  neigh 
bour  had  gone,  Grandma  Gates  said  that  it 
was  as  good  as  a  dose  of  medicine  to  have 
her  come  in. 

Mrs.  Bett  sat  on  the  porch  restored  and 
pleasant  when  the  family  returned.  Di  and 
Bobby  had  walked  home  with  Jenny. 

"Look  here,"  said  Dwight  Herbert,  "who 
is  it  sits  home  and  has  ice  cream  put  in  her 
lap,  like  a  queen?" 

"Vanilly  or  chocolate?"  Mrs.  Bett  de 
manded. 

"Chocolate,  mamma!"  Ina  cried,  with  the 
breeze  in  her  voice. 

"Vanilly  sets  better,"  Mrs.  Bett  said. 
119 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


They  sat  with  her  on  the  porch  while 
she  ate.  Ina  rocked  on  a  creaking  board. 
Dwight  swung  a  leg  over  the  railing. 
Monona  sat  pulling  her  skirt  over  her  feet, 
and  humming  all  on  one  note.  There  was 
no  moon,  but  the  warm  dusk  had  a  quality 
of  transparency  as  if  it  were  lit  in  all  its 
particles. 

The  gate  opened,  and  some  one  came  up 
the  walk.  They  looked,  and  it  was  Lulu. 


"Well,  if  it  ain't  Miss  Lulu  Bett!" 
Dwight  cried  involuntarily,  and  Ina  cried 
out  something. 

"How  did  you  know?"  Lulu  asked. 

"Know!    Know  what?" 

"That    it    ain't    Lulu    Deacon.      Hello, 


mamma/3 


She  passed  the  others,  and  kissed  her 
mother. 

"Say,"  said  Mrs.  Bett  placidly.  "And  I 
just  ate  up  the  last  spoonful  o'  cream." 

"Ain't  Lulu  Deacon!"  Ina's  voice  rose 
120 


August 


and  swelled  richly.     "What  you  talking?" 

"Didn't  he  write  to  you?"  Lulu  asked. 

"Not  a  word."  Dwight  answered  this. 
"All  we've  had  we  had  from  you — the  last 
from  Savannah,  Georgia." 

"Savannah,  Georgia,"  said  Lulu,  and 
laughed. 

They  could  see  that  she  was  dressed  well, 
in  dark  red  cloth,  with  a  little  tilting  hat 
and  a  drooping  veil.  She  did  not  seem  in 
any  wise  upset,  nor,  save  for  that  nervous 
laughter,  did  she  show  her  excitement. 

"Well,  but  he's  here  with  you,  isn't  he?" 
Dwight  demanded.  "Isn't  he  here?  Where 
is  he?" 

"Must  be  'most  to  Oregon  by  this  time," 
Lulu  said. 

"Oregon!" 

"You  see,"  said  Lulu,  "he  had  another 
wife." 

"Why,  he  had  not!"  exclaimed  Dwight 
absurdly. 

"Yes.  He  hasn't  seen  her  for  fifteen 
121 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


years  and  he  thinks  she's  dead.     But  he 
isn't  sure." 

"Nonsense,"  said  Dwight.  "Why,  of 
course  she's  dead  if  he  thinks  so." 

"I  had  to  be  sure,"  said  Lulu. 

At  first  dumb  before  this,  Ina  now  cried 
out:  "Monona!  Go  upstairs  to  bed  at 
once." 

"It's  only  quarter  to,"  said  Monona,  with 
assurance. 

"Do  as  mamma  tells  you." 

"But- 

"Monona!" 

She  went,  kissing  them  all  good-night 
and  taking  her  time  about  it.  Everything 
was  suspended  while  she  kissed  them  and 
departed,  walking  slowly  backward. 

"Married?"  said  Mrs.  Bett  with  tardy 
apprehension.  "Lulie,  was  your  husband 
married?" 

"Yes,"  Lulu  said,  "my  husband  was  mar 
ried,  mother." 

"Mercy,"  said  Ina.    "Think  of  anything 
like  that  in  our  family." 
122 


August 


"Well,  go  on — go  on!"  Dwight  cried. 
"Tell  us  about  it." 

Lulu  spoke  in  a  monotone,  with  her  old 
manner  of  hesitation: 

"We  were  going  to  Oregon.  First  down 
to  New  Orleans  and  then  out  to  California 
and  up  the  coast."  On  this  she  paused  and 
sighed.  "Well,  then  at  Savannah,  Georgia, 
he  said  he  thought  I  better  know,  first.  So 
he  told  me." 

"Yes — well,  what  did  he  say?"  Dwight 
demanded  irritably. 

"Cora  Waters,"  said  Lulu.  "Cora  Wa 
ters.  She  married  him  down  in  San  Diego, 
eighteen  years  ago.  She  went  to  South 
America  with  him." 

"Well,  he  never  let  us  know  of  it,  if  she 
did,"  said  Dwight. 

"No.  She  married  him  just  before  he 
went.  Then  in  South  America,  after  two 
years,  she  ran  away  again.  That's  all  he 
knows." 

"That's  a  pretty  story,"  said  Dwight 
contemptuously. 

123 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"He  says  if  she'd  been  alive,  she'd  been 
after  him  for  a  divorce.  And  she  never  has 
been,  so  he  thinks  she  must  be  dead.  The 
trouble  is,"  Lulu  said  again,  "he  wasn't 
sure.  And  I  had  to  be  sure." 

"Well,  but  mercy,"  said  Ina,  "couldn't 
he  find  out  now?" 

"It  might  take  a  long  time,"  said  Lulu 
simply,  "and  I  didn't  want  to  stay  and  not 
know." 

"Well,  then,  why  didn't  he  say  so  here?" 
Ina's  indignation  mounted. 

"He  would  have.  But  you  know  how 
sudden  everything  was.  He  said  he  thought 
about  telling  us  right  there  in  the  restau 
rant,  but  of  course  that'd  been  hard — 
wouldn't  it?  And  then  he  felt  so  sure  she 
was  dead." 

"Why  did  he  tell  you  at  all,  then?"  de 
manded  Ina,  whose  processes  were  simple. 

"Yes.  Well!  Why  indeed?"  Dwight 
Herbert  brought  out  these  words  with  a 
curious  emphasis. 

"I  thought  that,  just  at  first,"  Lulu  said, 
124 


August 


"but  only  just  at  first.  Of  course  that 
wouldn't  have  been  right.  And  then,  you 
see,  he  gave  me  my  choice." 

"Gave  you  your  choice?"  Dwight  echoed. 

"Yes.  About  going  on  and  taking  the 
chances.  He  gave  me  my  choice  when  he 
told  me,  there  in  Savannah,  Georgia." 

"What  made  him  conclude,  by  then,  that 
you  ought  to  be  told?"  Dwight  asked. 

"Why,  he'd  got  to  thinking  about  it," 
she  answered. 

A  silence  fell.  Lulu  sat  looking  out  to 
ward  the  street. 

"The  only  thing,"  she  said,  "as  long  as 
it  happened,  I  kind  of  wish  he  hadn't  told 
me  till  we  got  to  Oregon." 

"Lulu!"  said  Ina.  Ina  began  to  cry. 
"You  poor  thing!"  she  said. 

Her  tears  were  a  signal  to  Mrs.  Bett, 
who  had  been  striving  to  understand  all. 
Now  she  too  wept,  tossing  up  her  hands 
and  rocking  her  body.  Her  saucer  and 
spoon  clattered  on  her  knee. 

"He  felt  bad  too,"  Lulu  said. 
125 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"He!"  said  Dwight.     "He  must  have." 

"It's  you,"  Ina  sobbed.  "It's  you.  My 
sister!" 

"Well,"  said  Lulu,  "but  I  never  thought 
of  it  making  you  both  feel  bad,  or  I 
wouldn't  have  come  home.  I  knew,"  she 
added,  "it'd  make  Dwight  feel  bad.  I 
mean,  it  was  his  brother " 

"Thank  goodness,"  Ina  broke  in,  "no 
body  need  know  about  it." 

Lulu  regarded  her,  without  change. 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said  in  her  monotone. 
"People  will  have  to  know." 

"I  do  not  see  the  necessity."  Dwight's 
voice  was  an  edge.  Then  too  he  said  "do 
not,"  always  with  Dwight  betokening  the 
finalities. 

"Why,  what  would  they  think?"  Lulu 
asked,  troubled. 

"What  difference  does  it  make  what  they 
think?" 

"Why,"  said  Lulu  slowly,  "I  shouldn't 
like — you  see  they  might — why,  Dwight,  I 
think  we'll  have  to  tell  them." 
126 


August 


"You  do!  You  think  the  disgrace  of 
bigamy  in  this  family  is  something  the  whole 
town  will  have  to  know  about?" 

Lulu  looked  at  him  with  parted  lips. 

"Say,"  she  said,  "I  never  thought  about 
it  being  that." 

D wight  laughed.  "What  did  you  think 
it  was?  And  whose  disgrace  is  it,  pray?" 

"Ninian's,"  said  Lulu. 

"Ninian's !  Well,  he's  gone.  But  you're 
here.  And  I'm  here.  Folks'll  feel  sorry  for 
you.  But  the  disgrace — that'd  reflect  on 
me.  See?" 

"But  if  we  don't  tell,  what'll  they  think 
then?" 

Said  Dwight:  "They'll  think  what  they 
always  think  when  a  wife  leaves  her  hus 
band.  They'll  think  you  couldn't  get  along. 
That's  all." 

"I  should  hate  that,"  said  Lulu. 

"Well,  I  should  hate  the  other,  let  me 
ten  you." 

"Dwight,  Dwight,"  said  Ina.  "Let's  go 

in  the  house.  I'm  afraid  they'll  hear " 

127 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


As  they  rose,  Mrs.  Bett  plucked  at  her 
returned  daughter's  sleeve. 

"Lulie,"  she  said,  "was  his  other  wife — 
was  she  there?" 

"No,  no,  mother.    She  wasn't  there." 

Mrs.  Bett's  lips  moved,  repeating  the 
words.  "Then  that  ain't  so  bad,"  she  said. 
"I  was  afraid  maybe  she  turned  you  out." 

"No,"  Lulu  said,  "it  wasn't  that  bad, 
mother." 

Mrs.  Bett  brightened.  In  little  matters, 
she  quarrelled  and  presented,  but  the  large 
issues  left  her  blank. 

Through  some  indeterminate  sense  of  the 
importance  due  this  crisis,  the  Deacons  en 
tered  their  parlour.  D wight  lighted  that 
high,  central  burner  and  faced  about,  say 
ing: 

"In  fact,  I  simply  will  not  have  it,  Lulu! 
You  expect,  I  take  it,  to  make  your  home 
with  us  in  the  future,  on  the  old  terms." 

"Well " 

"I  mean,  did  Ninian  give  you  any 
money?" 

128 


August 


"No.  He  didn't  give  rne  any  money — 
only  enough  to  get  home  on.  And  I  kept 

my  suit why!"  she  flung  her  head  back, 

"I  wouldn't  have  taken  any  money!" 

"That  means,"  said  Dwight,  "that  you 
will  have  to  continue  to  live  here — on  the 
old  terms,  and  of  course  I'm  quite  willing 
that  you  should.  Let  me  tell  you,  however, 
that  this  is  on  condition — on  condition  that 
this  disgraceful  business  is  kept  to  our 
selves." 

She  made  no  attempt  to  combat  him  now. 
She  looked  back  at  him,  quivering,  and  in  a 
great  surprise,  but  she  said  nothing. 

"Truly,  Lulu,"  said  Ina,  "wouldn't  that 
be  best?  They'll  talk  anyway.  But  this 
way  they'll  only  talk  about  you,  and  the 
other  way  it'd  be  about  all  of  us." 

Lulu  said  only:  "But  the  other  way  would 
be  the  truth." 

Dwight's  eyes  narrowed:  "My  dear 
Lulu,"  he  said,  "are  you  sure  of  that?" 

"Sure?" 

"Yes.    Did  he  give  you  any  proofs?" 
129 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Proofs?" 

"Letters — documents  of  any  sort?  Any 
sort  of  assurance  that  he  was  speaking  the 
truth?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  Lulu.  "Proofs— no. 
He  told  me." 

"He  told  you!" 

"Why,  that  was  hard  enough  to  have  to 
do.  It  was  terrible  for  him  to  have  to  do. 
What  proofs "  She  stopped,  puzzled. 

"Didn't  it  occur  to  you,"  said  Dwight, 
"that  he  might  have  told  you  that  because 
he  didn't  want  to  have  to  go  on  with  it?" 

As  she  met  his  look,  some  power  seemed 
to  go  from  Lulu.  She  sat  down,  looked 
weakly  at  them,  and  within  her  closed  lips 
her  jaw  was  slightly  fallen.  She  said  noth 
ing.  And  seeing  on  her  skirt  a  spot  of 
dust  she  began  to  rub  at  that. 

"Why,  Dwight!"  Ina  cried,  and  moved 
to  her  sister's  side. 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you,"  he  said,  "that 
I  myself  have  no  idea  that  Ninian  told  you 
the  truth.  He  was  always  imagining  things 
130 


August 


—you  saw  that.  I  know  him  pretty  well 
— have  been  more  or  less  in  touch  with  him 
the  whole  time.  In  short,  I  haven't  the  least 
idea  he  was  ever  married  before." 

Lulu  continued  to  rub  at  her  skirt. 

"I  never  thought  of  that,"  she  said. 

"Look  here,"  Dwight  went  on  persuasive 
ly,  * 'hadn't  you  and  he  had  some  little  tiff 
when  he  told  you?" 

"No — no!  Why,  not  once.  Why,  we 
weren't  a  bit  like  you  and  Ina." 

She  spoke  simply  and  from  her  heart 
and  without  guile. 

"Evidently  not,"  Dwight  said  drily. 

Lulu  went  on:  "He  was  very  good  to 
me.  This  dress — and  my  shoes — and  my 
hat.  And  another  dress,  too."  She  found 
the  pins  and  took  off  her  hat.  "He  liked 
the  red  wing,"  she  said.  "I  wanted  black 
-oh,  Dwight!  He  did  tell  me  the  truth!" 
It  was  as  if  the  red  wing  had  abruptly 
borne  mute  witness. 

Dwight's  tone  now  mounted.  His  man 
ner,  it  mounted  too. 

131 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Even  if  it  is  true,"  said  he,  "I  desire 
that  you  should  keep  silent  and  protect  my 
family  from  this  scandal.  I  merely  mention 
my  doubts  to  you  for  your  own  profit." 

"My  own  profit!" 

She  said  no  more,  but  rose  and  moved 
to  the  door. 

"Lulu— you  see!  With  Di  and  all!"  Ina 
begged.  "We  just  couldn't  have  this 
known — even  if  it  was  so." 

"You  have  it  in  your  hands,"  said 
Dwight,  "to  repay  me,  Lulu,  for  anything 
that  you  feel  I  may  have  done  for  you  in 
the  past.  You  also  have  it  in  your  hands 
to  decide  whether  your  home  here  contin 
ues.  That  is  not  a  pleasant  position  for  me 
to  find  myself  in.  It  is  distinctly  unpleas 
ant,  I  may  say.  But  you  see  for  yourself." 

Lulu  went  on,  into  the  passage. 

"Wasn't  she  married  when  she  thought 
she  was?"  Mrs.  Bett  cried  shrilly. 

"Mamma,"  said  Ina.  "Do,  please,  re 
member  Monona.  Yes — Dwight  thinks 
132 


August 


she's  married  all  right  now — and  that  it's 
all  right,  all  the  time." 

"Well,  I  hope  so,  for  pity  sakes,"  said 
Mrs,  Bett,  and  left  the  room  with  her 
daughter. 

Hearing  the  stir,  Monona  upstairs  lifted 
her  voice: 

"Mamma!  Come  on  and  hear  my 
prayers,  why  don't  you?" 

When  they  came  downstairs  next  morn 
ing,  Lulu  had  breakfast  ready. 

"Well!"  cried  Ina  in  her  curving  tone, 
"if  this  isn't  like  old  times." 

Lulu  said  yes,  that  it  was  like  old  times, 
and  brought  the  bacon  to  the  table. 

"Lulu's  the  only  one  in  this  house 
can  cook  the  bacon  so's  it'll  chew,"  Mrs. 
Bett  volunteered.  She  was  wholly  affable, 
and  held  contentedly  to  Ina's  last  word  that 
Dwight  thought  now  it,. was  all  right. 

"Ho!"  said  Dwight.  "The  happy  family, 
once  more  about  the  festive  toaster."  He 
gauged  the  moment  to  call  for  good  cheer. 
183 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Ina,  too,  became  breezy,  blithe.  Monona 
caught  their  spirit  and  laughed,  head  thrown 
well  back  and  gently  shaken. 

Di  came  in.  She  had  been  told  that 
Auntie  Lulu  was  at  home,  and  that  she, 
Di,  wasn't  to  say  anything  to  her  about 
anything,  nor  anything  to  anybody  else 
about  Auntie  Lulu  being  back.  Under 
these  prohibitions,  which  loosed  a  thousand 
speculations,  Di  was  very  nearly  paralysed. 
She  stared  at  her  Aunt  Lulu  incessantly. 

Not  one  of  them  had  even  a  talent  for 
the  casual,  save  Lulu  herself.  Lulu  was 
amazingly  herself.  She  took  her  old  place, 
assumed  her  old  offices.  When  Monona 
declared  against  bacon,  it  was  Lulu  who 
suggested  milk  toast  and  went  to  make  it. 

"Mamma,"  Di  whispered  then,  like  es 
caping  steam,  "isn't  Uncle  Ninian  coming 
too?" 

"Hush.  No.  Now  don't  ask  any  more 
questions." 

"Well,  can't  I  tell  Bobby  and  Jenny 
she's  here?" 

134 


August 


"No.  Don't  say  anything  at  all  about 
her." 

"But,  mamma.    What  has  she  done?" 

"Di!  Do  as  mamma  tells  you.  Don't 
you  think  mamma  knows  best?" 

Di  of  course  did  not  think  so,  had  not 
thought  so  for  a  long  time.  But  now 
Dwight  said: 

"Daughter!  Are  you  a  little  girl  or  are 
you  our  grown-up  young  lady?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Di  reasonably,  "but 
I  think  you're  treating  me  like  a  little 
girl  now." 

"Shame,  Di,"  said  Ina,  unabashed  by  the 
accident  of  reason  being  on  the  side  of  Di. 

"I'm  eighteen,"  Di  reminded  them  for 
lornly,  "and  through  high  school." 

"Then  act  so,"  boomed  her  father. 

Baffled,  thwarted,  bewildered,  Di  went 
over  to  Jenny  Plow's  and  there  imparted 
understanding  by  the  simple  process  of 
letting  Jenny  guess,  to  questions  skilfully 
shaped. 

When  Dwight  said,  "Look  at  my  beauti- 
135 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


ful  handkerchief/'  displayed  a  hole,  sent 
his  Ina  for  a  better,  Lulu,  with  a  manner 
of  haste,  addressed  him: 

"Dwight.  It's  a  funny  thing,  but  I 
haven't  Ninian's  Oregon  address." 

"Well?" 

"Well,  I  wish  you'd  give  it  to  me." 

Dwight  tightened  and  lifted  his  lips. 
"It  would  seem,"  he  said,  "that  you  have 
no  real  use  for  that  particular  address, 
Lulu." 

"Yes,  I  have.  I  want  it.  You  have  it, 
haven't  you,  Dwight?" 

"Certainly  I  have  it." 

"Won't  you  please  write  it  down  for 
me?"  She  had  ready  a  bit  of  paper  and 
a  pencil  stump. 

"My  dear  Lulu,  now  why  revive  any 
thing?  Why  not  be  sensible  and  leave 
this  alone?  No  good  can  come  by " 

"But  why  shouldn't  I  have  his  address?" 

"If  everything  is  over  between  you,  why 
should  you?" 

"But  you  say  he's  still  my  husband." 
136 


August 


Dwight  flushed.  "If  my  brother  has 
shown  his  inclination  as  plainly  as  I  judge 
that  he  has,  it  is  certainly  not  my  place 
to  put  you  in  touch  with  him  again." 

"You  won't  give  it  to  me?" 

"My  dear  Lulu,  in  all  kindness — no." 

His  Ina  came  running  back,  bearing 
handkerchiefs  with  different  coloured  bor 
ders  for  him  to  choose  from.  He  chose  the 
initial  that  she  had  embroidered,  and  had 
not  the  good  taste  not  to  kiss  her. 

They  were  all  on  the  porch  that  evening, 
when  Lulu  came  downstairs. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  Ina  demanded, 
sisterly.  And  on  hearing  that  Lulu  had 
an  errand,  added  still  more  sisterly;  "Well, 
but  mercy,  what  you  so  dressed  up  for?" 

Lulu  was  in  a  thin  black  and  white  gown 
which  they  had  never  seen,  and  wore  the  tilt 
ing  hat  with  the  red  wing. 

"Ninian  bought  me  this,"  said  Lulu 
only. 

"But,  Lulu,  don't  you  think  it  might  be 
137 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


better  to   keep,  well — out  of  sight  for  a 
few  days?"    Ina's  lifted  look  besought  her. 

"Why?"  Lulu  asked. 

"Why  set  people  wondering  till  we  have 
to?" 

"They  don't  have  to  wonder,  far  as  I'm 
concerned,"  said  Lulu,  and  went  down  the 
walk. 

Ina  looked  at  Dwight.  "She  never  spoke 
to  me  like  that  in  her  life  before,"  she 
said. 

She  watched  her  sister's  black  and  white 
figure  going  erectly  down  the  street. 

"That  gives  me  the  funniest  feeling," 
said  Ina,  "as  if  Lulu  had  on  clothes  bought 
for  her  by  some  one  that  wasn't — that 
was " 

"By  her  husband  who  has  left  her,"  said 
Dwight  sadly. 

"Is  that  what  it  is,  papa?"  Di  asked 
alertly.  For  a  wonder,  she  was  there;  had 
been  there  the  greater  part  of  the  day — 
most  of  the  time  staring,  fascinated,  at  her 
Aunt  Lulu. 

188 


August 


"That's  what  it  is,  my  little  girl,"  said 
Dwight,  and  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  I  think  it's  a  shame,"  said  Di 
stoutly.  "And  I  think  Uncle  Ninian  is  a 
slunge." 

"Di!" 

"I  do.  And  I'd  be  ashamed  to  think 
anything  else.  I'd  like  to  tell  everybody." 

"There  is,"  said  Dwight,  "no  need  for 
secrecy — now." 

"Dwight!"  said  Ina — Ina's  eyes  always 
remained  expressionless,  but  it  must  have 
been  her  lashes  that  looked  so  startled. 

"No  need  whatever  for  secrecy,"  he  re 
peated  with  firmness.  "The  truth  is,  Lulu's 
husband  has  tired  of  her  and  sent  her  home. 
We  must  face  it." 

"But,  Dwight— how  awful  for  Lulu  .  .  ." 

"Lulu,"  said  Dwight,  "has  us  to  stand 
by  her." 

Lulu,  walking  down  the  main  street, 
thought: 

"Now  Mis'  Chambers  is  seeing  me. 
Now  Mis'  Curtis.  There's  somebody  be- 
139 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


hind  the  vines  at  Mis'  Martin's.  Here 
comes  Mis'  Grove  and  I've  got  to  speak  to 
her  .  .  ." 

One  and  another  and  another  met  her, 
and  every  one  cried  out  at  her  some  ver 
sion  of: 

"Lulu  Bett!"  Or,  "W-well,  it  isn't  Lulu 
Bett  any  more,  is  it?  .Well,  what  are  you 
doing  here?  I  thought  .  .  ." 

"I'm  back  to  stay,"  she  said. 

"The  idea!  Well,  where  you  hiding  that 
handsome  husband  of  yours?  Say,  but  we 
were  surprised!  You're  the  sly  one " 

"My — Mr.  Deacon  isn't  here." 

"Oh." 

"No.     He's  West." 

"Oh,  I  see." 

Having  no  arts,  she  must  needs  let  the 
conversation  die  like  this,  could  invent  noth 
ing  concealing  or  gracious  on  which  to 
move  away. 

She    went    to    the    post-office.      It    was 
early,  there  were  few  at  the  post-office — 
with  only  one  or  two  there  had  she  to  go 
140 


August 


through  her  examination.  Then  she  went 
to  the  general  delivery  window,  tense  for 
a  new  ordeal. 

To  her  relief,  the  face  which  was  shown 
there  was  one  strange  to  her,  a  slim  youth, 
reading  a  letter  of  his  own,  and  smiling. 

"Excuse  me,"  said  Lulu  faintly. 

The  youth  looked  up,  with  eyes  warmed 
by  the  words  on  the  pink  paper  which  he 
held. 

"Could  you  give  me  the  address  of  Mr. 
Ninian  Deacon?" 

"Let's  see — you  mean  D wight  Deacon, 
I  guess?" 

"No.  It's  his  brother.  He's  been  here. 
From  Oregon.  I  thought  he  might  have 

given  you  his  address "  she  dwindled 

away. 

"Wait  a  minute,"  said  the  youth.  "Nope. 
No  address  here.  Say,  why  don't  you  send 
it  to  his  brother?  He'd  know.  D  wight 
Deacon,  the  dentist." 

"I'll  do  that,"  Lulu  said  absurdly,  and 
turned  away. 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


She  went  back  up  the  street,  walking  fast 
now  to  get  away  from  them  all.  Once  or 
twice  she  pretended  not  to  see  a  familiar 
face.  But  when  she  passed  the  mirror 
in  an  insurance  office  window,  she  saw  her 
reflection  and  at  its  appearance  she  felt 
surprise  and  pleasure. 

"Well!"  she  thought,  almost  in  Ina's 
own  manner. 

Abruptly  her  confidence  rose. 

Something  of  this  confidence  was  still 
upon  her  when  she  returned.  They  were 
in  the  dining-room  now,  all  save  Di,  who 
was  on  the  porch  with  Bobby,  and  Monona, 
who  was  in  bed  and  might  be  heard  ex 
travagantly  singing. 

Lulu  sat  down  with  her  hat  on.  When 
Dwight  inquired  playfully,  "Don't  we  look 
like  company?"  she  did  not  reply.  He 
looked  at  her  speculatively.  Where  had 
she  gone,  with  whom  had  she  talked,  what 
had  she  told?  Ina  looked  at  her  rather 
fearfully.  But  Mrs.  Bett  rocked  content 
edly  and  ate  cardamom  seeds. 
142 


August 


"Whom  did  you  see?"  Ina  asked. 

Lulu  named  them. 

"See  them  to  talk  to?"  from  Dwight. 

Oh,  yes.    They  had  all  stopped. 

"What  did  they  say?"  Ina  burst  out. 

They  had  inquired  for  Ninian,  Lulu  said ; 
and  said  no  more. 

Dwight  mulled  this.  Lulu  might  have 
told  every  one  of  these  women  that  cock- 
and-bull  story  with  which  she  had  come 
home.  It  might  be  all  over  town.  Of 
course,  in  that  case  he  could  turn  Lulu 
out — should  do  so,  in  fact.  Still  the  story 
would  be  all  over  town. 

"Dwight,"  said  Lulu,  "I  want  Ninian's 
address." 

"Going  to  write  to  him!"  Ina  cried  in 
credulously. 

"I  want  to  ask  him  for  the  proofs  that 
Dwight  wanted." 

"My  dear  Lulu,"  Dwight  said  impa 
tiently,  "you  are  not  the  one  to  write. 
Have  you  no  delicacy?" 

Lulu  smiled — a  strange  smile,  originat- 
143 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


ing  and  dying  in  one  corner  of  her  mouth. 

"Yes,  she  said.  "So  much  delicacy  that 
I  want  to  be  sure  whether  I'm  married  or 
not." 

Dwight  cleared  his  throat  with  a  move 
ment  which  seemed  to  use  his  shoulders 
for  the  purpose. 

"I  myself  will  take  this  up  with  my 
brother,"  he  said.  "I  will  write  to  him 
about  it." 

Lulu  sprang  to  her  feet.  "Write  to  him 
now!"  she  cried. 

"Really,"  said  Dwight,  lifting  his  brows. 

"Now — now!"  Lulu  said.  She  moved 
about,  collecting  writing  materials  from 
their  casual  lodgments  on  shelf  and  table. 
She  set  all  before  him  and  stood  by  him. 
"Write  to  him  now,"  she  said  again. 

"My  dear  Lulu,  don't  be  absurd." 

She  said:  "Ina.  Help  me.  If  it  was 
Dwight — and  they  didn't  know  whether 
he  had  another  wife,  or  not,  and  you  wanted 
to  ask  him — oh,  don't  you  see?  Help 


me." 


144 


August 


Ina  was  not  yet  the  woman  to  cry  for 
justice  for  its  own  sake,  nor  even  to  stand 
by  another  woman.  She  was  primitive, 
and  her  instinct  was  to  look  to  her  own  male 
merely. 

"Well/'  she  said,  "of  course.  But  why 
not  let  Dwight  do  it  in  his  own  way? 
Wouldn't  that  be  better?" 

She  put  it  to  her  sister  fairly:  Now,  no 
matter  what  Dwight's  way  was,  wouldn't 
that  be  better? 

"Mother!"  said  Lulu.  She  looked  ir 
resolutely  toward  her  mother.  But  Mrs. 
Bett  was  eating  cardamom  seeds  with  ex 
ceeding  gusto,  and  Lulu  looked  away. 
Caught  by  the  gesture,  Mrs.  Bett  voiced 
her  grievance. 

"Lulie,"  she  said,  "Set  down.  Take  off 
your  hat,  why  don't  you?" 

Lulu  turned  upon  Dwight  a  quiet  face 
which  he  had  never  seen  before. 

"You  write  that  letter  to  Ninian,"  she 
said,  "and  you  make  him  tell  you  so  you'll 
145 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


understand.     I  know  he  spoke  the  truth. 
But  I  want  you  to  know." 

"M— m,"  said  D wight.  "And  then  I 
suppose  you're  going  to  tell  it  all  over 
town — as  soon  as  you  have  the  proofs." 

"I'm  going  to  tell  it  all  over  town," 
said  Lulu,  "just  as  it  is — unless  you  write 
to  him  now." 

"Lulu!"  cried  Ina.    "Oh,  you  wouldn't." 

"I  would,"  said  Lulu.     "I  will." 

Dwight  was  sobered.  This  unimagined 
Lulu  looked  capable  of  it.  But  then  he 
sneered. 

"And  get  turned  out  of  this  house,  as 
you  would  be?" 

"Dwight!"  cried  his  Ina.  "Oh,  you 
wouldn't!" 

"I  would,"  said  Dwight.  "I  wiU.  Lulu 
knows  it." 

"I  shall  tell  what  I  know  and  then  leave 
your   house   anyway,"   said   Sglu,    "unless 
you  get  Ninian's  word.     ji«^HL  want  you 
should  write  him  now." 
146 


August 


"Leave  your  mother?  And  Ina?"  he 
asked. 

"Leave  everything,"  said  Lulu. 

"Oh,  Dwight,"  said  Ina,  "we  can't  get 
along  without  Lulu."  She  did  not  say  in 
what  particulars,  but  Dwight  knew. 

Dwight  looked  at  Lulu,  an  upward,  side- 
wise  look,  with  a  manner  of  peering  out 
to  see  if  she  meant  it.  And  he  saw. 

He  shrugged,  pursed  his  lips  crookedly, 
rolled  his  head  to  signify  the  inexpressible. 
"Isn't  that  like  a  woman?"  he  demanded. 
He  rose.  "Rather  than  let  you  in  for  a 
show  of  temper,"  he  said  grandly,  "I'd  do 
anything." 

He  wrote  the  letter,  addressed  it,  his 
hand  elaborately  curved  in  secrecy  about 
the  envelope,  pocketed  it. 

"Ina  and  I'll  walk  down  with  you  to 
mail  it,"  said  Lulu. 

Dwight  hesitated,  frowned.  His  Ina 
watched  him  with  consulting  brows. 

"I  was  going,"   said  Dwight,  "to  pro 
pose  a  little  stroll  before  bedtime."     He 
147 

•' 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


roved  about  the  room.  "Where's  my  beau 
tiful  straw  hat?  There's  nothing  like  a 
brisk  walk  to  induce  sound,  restful  sleep," 
he  told  them.  He  hummed  a  bar. 

"You'll  be  all  right,  mother?"  Lulu 
asked. 

Mrs.  Bett  did  not  look  up.  "These  carda- 
mon  hev  got  a  little  mite  too  dry,"  she 
said. 

In  their  room,  Ina  and  Dwight  discussed 
the  incredible  actions  of  Lulu. 

"I  saw,"  said  Dwight,  "I  saw  she  wasn't 
herself.  I'd  do  anything  to  avoid  having 
a  scene — you  know  that."  His  glance  swept 
a  little  anxiously  his  Ina.  "You  know 
that,  don't  you?"  he  sharply  inquired. 

"But  I  really  think  you  ought  to  have 
written  to  Ninian  about  it,"  she  now  dared 
to  say.  "It's — it's  not  a  nice  position  for 
Lulu." 

"Nice?  Well,  but  whom  has  she  got  to 
blame  for  it?" 

"Why,  Ninian,"  said  Ina. 
148 


August 


Dwight  threw  out  his  hands.  "Herself," 
he  said.  "To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  was 
perfectly  amazed  ,at  the  way  she  snapped 
him  up  there  in  that  restaurant." 

"Why,  but,  Dwight " 

"Brazen,"  he  said.     "Oh,  it  was  brazen." 

"It  was  just  fun,  in  the  first  place." 

"But  no  really  nice  woman "  he  shook 

his  head. 

"Dwight!  Lulu  is  nice.    The  idea!" 

He  regarded  her.  "Would  you  have  done 
that?"  he  would  know. 

Under  his  fond  look,  she  softened,  took 
his  homage,  accepted  everything,  was  si 
lent. 

"Certainly  not,"  he  said.  "Lulu's  tastes 
are  not  fine  like  yours.  I  should  never 
think  of  you  as  sisters." 

"She's  awfully  good,"  Ina  said  feebly. 
Fifteen  years  of  married  life  behind  her — but 
this  was  sweet  and  she  could  not  resist. 

"She  has  excellent  qualities."  He  ad 
mitted  it.  "But  look  at  the  position  she's 
in — married  to  a  man  who  tells  her  he  has 
149 


Miss  Lulu  Beit 


another  wife  in  order  to  get  free.     Now, 
no  really  nice  woman— 

"No  really  nice  man Ina  did  say 

that  much. 

"Ah,"  said  Dwight,  "but  you  could  never 
be  in  such  a  position.  No,  no.  Lulu  is 
sadly  lacking  somewhere." 

Ina  sighed,  threw  back  her  head,  caught 
her  lower  lip  with  her  upper,  as  might  be 
in  a  hem.  "What  if  it  was  Di?"  she  sup 
posed. 

"Di!"  Dwight's  look  rebuked  his  wife. 
"Di,"  he  said,  "was  born  with  ladylike  feel 
ings." 

It  was  not  yet  ten  o'clock.  Bobby  Lar- 
kin  was  permitted  to  stay  until  ten.  From 
the  veranda  came  the  indistinguishable  mur 
mur  of  those  young  voices. 

"Bobby,"  Di  was  saying  within  that  mur 
mur,  "Bobby,  you  don't  kiss  me  as  if  you 
really  wanted  to  kiss  me,  to-night." 


VI 

SEPTEMBER 


! 


VI 

SEPTEMBER 

HE  office  of  Dwight  Herbert  Dea 
con,  Dentist,  Gold  Work  a  Spe 
ciality  (sic)  in  black  lettering,  and 
Justice  of  the  Peace  in  gold,  was  above  a 
store  which  had  been  occupied  by  one  un 
lucky  tenant  after  another,  and  had  suffered 
long  periods  of  vacancy  when  ladies'  aid  so 
cieties  served  lunches  there,  under  great 
white  signs,  badly  lettered.  Some  months 
of  disuse  were  now  broken  by  the  news 
that  the  store  had  been  let  to  a  music  man. 
A  music  man,  what  on  earth  was  that, 
Warbleton  inquired. 

The  music  man  arrived,  installed  three 
pianos,  and  filled  his  window  with  sheet 
music,  as  sung  by  many  ladies  who  swung 
in  hammocks  or  kissed  their  hands  on  the 
music  covers.  While  he  was  still  moving 
153 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


in,  Dwight  Herbert  Deacon  wandered 
downstairs  and  stood  informally  in  the 
door  of  the  new  store.  The  music  man,  a 
pleasant-faced  chap  of  thirty-odd,  was 
rubbing  at  the  face  of  a  piano. 

"Hello,  there!"  he  said.  "Can  I  sell  you 
an  upright?" 

"If  I  can  take  it  out  in  pulling  your 
teeth,  you  can,"  Dwight  replied.  "Or," 
said  he,  "I  might  marry  you  free,  either 


one." 


On  this  their  friendship  began.  Thence 
forth,  when  business  was  dull,  the  idle  hours 
of  both  men  were  beguiled  with  idle  gossip. 

"How  the  dickens  did  you  think  of 
pianos  for  a  line?"  Dwight  asked  him  once. 
"Now,  my  father  was  a  dentist,  so  I  came 
by  it  natural — never  entered  my  head  to 
be  anything  else.  But  pianos " 

The  music  man — his  name  was  Neil 
Cornish — threw  up  his  chin  in  a  boyish 
fashion,  and  said  he'd  be  jiggered  if  he 
knew.  All  up  and  down  the  Warbleton 
main  street,  the  chances  are  that  the  au- 
154. 


'September 


swer  would  sound  the  same.  "I'm  studying 
law  when  I  get  the  chance,"  said  Cornish, 
as  one  who  makes  a  bid  to  be  thought  of 
more  highly. 

"I  see,"  said  Dwight,  respectfully 
dwelling  on  the  verb. 

Later  on  Cornish  confided  more  to 
Dwight:  He  was  to  come  by  a  little  in 
heritance  some  day — not  much,  but  some 
thing.  Yes,  it  made  a  man  feel  a  certain 
confidence  .  .  . 

"Don't  it?"  said  Dwight  heartily,  as  if 
he  knew. 

Every  one  liked  Cornish.  He  told  funny 
stories,  and  he  never  compared  Warbleton 
save  to  its  advantage.  So  at  last  Dwight 
said  tentatively  at  lunch: 

"What  if  I  brought  that  Niel  Cornish  up 
for  supper,  one  of  these  nights?" 

"Oh,  Dwightie,  do,"  said  Ina.  "If  there's 
a  man  in  town,  let's  know  it." 

"What  if  I  brought  him  up  to-night?" 

Up  went  Ina's  eyebrows.     To-night? 

c  'Scalloped  potatoes  and  meat  loaf  and 
'  155 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


sauce  and  bread  and  butter,"  Lulu  con 
tributed. 

Cornish  came  to  supper.  He  was  what 
is  known  in  Warbleton  as  dapper.  This 
Ina  saw  as  she  emerged  on  the  veranda  in 
response  to  Dwight's  informal  halloo  on 
his  way  upstairs.  She  herself  was  in  white 
muslin,  now  much  too  snug,  and  a  blue 
ribbon.  To  her  greeting  their  guest  re 
plied  in  that  engaging  shyness  which  is 
not  awkwardness.  He  moved  in  some 
pleasant  web  of  gentleness  and  friendli 
ness. 

They  asked  him  the  usual  questions,  and 
he  replied,  rocking  all  the  time  with  a 
faint  undulating  motion  of  head  and  shoul 
ders:  Warbleton  was  one  of  the  prettiest 
little  towns  that  he  had  ever  seen.  He  liked 
the  people — they  seemed  different.  He 
was  sure  to  like  the  place,  already  liked  it. 
Lulu  came  to  the  door  in  Ninian's  thin 
black-and-white  gown.  She  shook  hands 
with  the  stranger,  not  looking  at  him,  and 
said,  "Come  to  supper,  all."  Monona  was 
156 


September 


already  in  her  place,  singing  under-breath. 
Mrs.  Bett,  after  hovering  in  the  kitchen 
door,  entered ;  but  they  forgot  to  introduce 
her. 

"Where's  Di?"  asked  Ina.  "I  declare 
that  daughter  of  mine  is  never  anywhere." 

A  brief  silence  ensued  as  they  were  seated. 
There  being  a  guest,  grace  was  to  come, 
and  Dwight  said  unintelligibly  and  like 
lightning  a  generic  appeal  to  bless  this  food, 
forgive  all  our  sins  and  finally  save  us. 
And  there  was  something  tremendous,  in 
this  ancient  form  whereby  all  stages  of 
men  bow  in  some  now  unrecognized  recog 
nition  of  the  ceremonial  of  taking  food  to 
nourish  life — and  more. 

At  "Amen"  Di  flashed  in,  her  offices  at 
the  mirror  fresh  upon  her — perfect  hair, 
silk  dress  turned  up  at  the  hem.  She  met 
Cornish,  crimsoned,  fluttered  to  her  seat, 
joggled  the  table  and,  "Oh,  dear,"  she  said 
audibly  to  her  mother,  "I  forgot  my  ring." 

The  talk  was  saved  alive  by  a  frank  ef 
fort.     Dwight  served,  making  jests  about 
157 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


everybody  coming  back  for  more.  They 
went  on  with  Warbleton  happenings,  im 
provements  and  openings;  and  the  run 
away.  Cornish  tried  hard  to  make  himself 
agreeable,  not  ingratiatingly  but  good- 
naturedly.  He  wished  profoundly  that  be 
fore  coming  he  had  looked  up  some  more 
stories  in  the  back  of  the  Musical  Gazettes. 
Lulu  surreptitiously  pinched  off  an  ant 
that  was  running  at  large  upon  the  cloth 
and  thereafter  kept  her  eyes  steadfastly 
on  the  sugar-bowl  to  see  if  it  could  be  from 
that.  Dwight  pretended  that  those  whom 
he  was  helping  a  second  time  were  getting 
more  than  their  share  and  facetiously  land 
ed  on  Di  about  eating  so  much  that  she 
would  grow  up  and  be  married,  first  thing 
she  knew.  At  the  word  "married"  Di 
turned  scarlet,  laughed  heartily  and  lifted 
her  glass  of  water. 

"And  what  instruments  do  you  play?" 
Ina  asked  Cornish,  in  an  unrelated  effort 
to  lift  the  talk  to  musical  levels. 

"Well,  do  you  know,"  said  the  music 
158 


September 


man,  "I  can't  play  a  thing.  Don't  know 
a  black  note  from  a  white  one." 

"You  don't?  Why,  Di  plays  very  pret 
tily,"  said  Di's  mother.  "But  then  how  can 
you  tell  what  songs  to  order?"  Ina  cried. 

"Oh,  by  the  music  houses.  You  go  by 
the  sales."  For  the  first  time  it  occurred 
to  Cornish  that  this  was  ridiculous.  "You 
know,  I'm  really  studying  law,"  he  said, 
shyly  and  proudly.  Law!  How  very  in 
teresting,  from  Ina.  Oh,  but  won't  he 
bring  up  some  songs  some  evening,  for 
them  to  try  over?  Her  and  Di?  At  this 
Di  laughed  and  said  that  she  was  out  of 
practice  and  lifted  her  glass  of  water.  In 
the  presence  of  adults  Di  made  one  weep, 
she  was  so  slender,  so  young,  so  without 
defences,  so  intolerably  sensitive  to  every 
contact,  so  in  agony  lest  she  be  found  want 
ing.  It  was  amazing  how  unlike  was  this 
Di  to  the  Di  who  had  ensnared  Bobby 
Larkin.  What  was  one  to  think? 

Cornish  paid  very  little  attention  to  her. 
To  Lulu  he  said  kindly,  "Don't  you  play, 
159 


Miss  Lulu  Beit 


Miss ?"  He  had  not  caught  her  name 

— no  stranger  ever  did  catch  it.  But 
Dwight  now  supplied  it:  "Miss  Lulu  Bett," 
he  explained  with  loud  emphasis,  and  Lulu 
burned  her  slow  red.  This  question  Lulu 
had  usually  answered  by  telling  how  a 
felon  had  interrupted  her  lessons  and  she 
had  stopped  "taking" — a  participle  sacred 
to  music,  in  Warbleton.  This  vignette  had 
been  a  kind  of  epitome  of  Lulu's  biography. 
But  now  Lulu  was  heard  to  say  serenely: 

"No,  but  I'm  quite  fond  of  it.  I  went 
to  a  lovely  concert — two  weeks  ago." 

They  all  listened.  Strange  indeed  to 
think  of  Lulu  as  having  had  experiences  of 
which  they  did  not  know. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "It  was  in  Savannah, 
Georgia."  She  flushed,  and  lifted  her  eyes 
in  a  manner  of  faint  defiance.  "Of  course," 
she  said,  "I  don't  know  the  names  of  all 
the  different  instruments  they  played,  but 
there  were  a  good  many."  She  laughed 
pleasantly  as  a  part  of  her  sentence.  "They 
had  some  lovely  tunes,"  she  said.  She 
160 


September 


knew  that  the  subject  was  not  exhausted 
and  she  hurried  on.  "The  hall  was  real 
large,"  she  superadded,  "and  there  were 
quite  a  good  many  people  there.  And  it 
was  too  warm." 

"I  see,"  said  Cornish,  and  said  what  he 
had  been  waiting  to  say:  That  he  too  had 
been  in  Savannah,  Georgia. 

Lulu    lit    with    pleasure.      "Well!"    she 
said.      And    her    mind    worked    and    she 
caught  at  the  moment  before  it  had  es 
caped.     "Isn't  it  a  pretty  city?"  she  asked. 
And    Cornish    assented    with    the    intense 
heartiness  of  the  provincial.     He,  too,  it 
seemed,  had  a  conversational  appearance  to 
maintain  by  its  own  effort.     He  said  that 
he  had  enjoyed  being  in  that  town  and  that 
he  was  there  for  two  hours. 

"I  was  there  for  a  week."     Lulu's  su 
periority  was  really  pretty. 

"Have  good  weather?"  Cornish  selected 
next. 

Oh,  yes.     And  they  saw  all  the  differ 
ent  buildings— but  at  her  "we"  she  flushed 
161 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


and  was  silenced.  She  was  colouring  and 
breathing  quickly.  This  was  the  first  bit 
of  conversation  of  this  sort  of  Lulu's  life. 

After  supper  Ina  inevitably  proposed  cro 
quet,  D  wight  pretended  to  try  to  escape 
and,  with  his  irrespressible  mien,  talked 
about  Ina,  elaborate  in  his  insistence  on  the 
third  person — "She  loves  it,  we  have  to 
humour  her,  you  know  how  it  is.  Or  no! 
You  don't  know!  But  you  will" — and  more 
of  the  same  sort,  everybody  laughing  heart 
ily,  save  Lulu,  who  looked  uncomfortable 
and  wished  that  Dwight  wouldn't,  and  Mrs. 
Bett,  who  paid  no  attention  to  anybody 
that  night,  not  because  she  had  not  been 
introduced,  an  omission,  which  she  had  not 
even  noticed,  but  merely  as  another  form 
of  "tantrim."  A  self-indulgence. 

They  emerged  for  croquet.  And  there 
on  the  porch  sat  Jenny  Plow  and  Bobby, 
waiting  for  Di  to  keep  an  old  engagement, 
which  Di  pretended  to  have  forgotten,  and 
to  be  frightfully  annoyed  to  have  to  keep. 
She  met  the  objections  of  her  parents  with 
162 


September 


all  the  batteries  of  her  coquetry,  set  for 
both  Bobby  and  Cornish  and,  bold  in  the 
presence  of  "company,"  at  last  went  laugh 
ing  away.  And  in  the  minute  areas  of  her 
consciousness  she  said  to  herself  that  Bobby 
would  be  more  in  love  with  her  than  ever 
because  she  had  risked  all  to  go  with  him; 
and  that  Cornish  ought  to  be  distinctly  at 
tracted  to  her  because  she  had  not  stayed. 
She  was  as  primitive  as  pollen. 

Ina  was  vexed.  She  said  so,  pouting  in 
a  fashion  which  she  should  have  outgrown 
with  white  muslin  and  blue  ribbons,  and 
she  had  outgrown  none  of  these  things. 

"That  just  spoils  croquet,"  she  said.  "I'm 
vexed.  Now  we  can't  have  a  real  game." 

From  the  side-door,  where  she  must  have 
been  lingering  among  the  waterproofs, 
Lulu  stepped  forth. 

"I'll  play  a  game,"  she  said. 

When  Cornish  actually  proposed  to  bring 
some  music  to  the  Deacons',   Ina  turned 
toward  Dwight  Herbert  all  the  facets  of 
163 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


her  responsibility.     And  Ina's  sense  of  re 
sponsibility     toward     Di     was     enormous, 
oppressive,   primitive,   amounting,   in   fact, 
toward  this  daughter  of  Dwight  Herbert's 
late  wife,  to  an  ability  to  compress  the  offices 
of   stepmotherhood   into   the    functions   of 
the  lecture  platform.     Ina  was  a  fountain 
of  admonition.     Her  idea  of  a  daughter, 
step  or  not,  was  that  of  a  manufactured 
product,    strictly,    which    you    constantly 
pinched  and  moulded.     She  thought  that 
a  moral  preceptor  had  the  right  to  secrete 
precepts.    Di  got  them  all.    But  of  course 
the    crest    of    Ina's    responsibility   was    to 
marry  Di.     This  verb  should  be  transitive 
only    when    lovers    are    speaking    of    each 
other,    or    the    minister    or    magistrate    is 
speaking   of  lovers.      It   should   never   be 
transitive  when   predicated   of  parents   or 
any  other  third  party.    But  it  is.    Ina  was 
quite  agitated  by  its  transitiveness  as  she 
took  to  her  husband  her  incredible  respon 
sibility. 

"You  know,  Herbert,"  said  Ina,  "if  this 
164 


September 


Mr.  Cornish  comes  here  very  much,  what 
we  may  expect." 

"What    may    we     expect?''     demanded 
Dwight  Herbert,  crisply. 

Ina  always  played  his  games,  answered 
what  he  expected  her  to  answer,  pretended 
to  be  intuitive  when  she  was  not  so,  said 
"I   know"   when   she   didn't   know   at   all. 
Dwight  Herbert,  on  the  other  hand,  did 
not  even  play  her  games  when  he  knew 
perfectly  what  she  meant,   but  pretended 
not  to  understand,  made  her  repeat,  made 
her  explain.    It  was  as  if  Ina  had  to  please 
him  for,  say,  a  living;  but  as  for  that  den 
tist,  he  had  to  please  nobody.    In  the  con 
versations  of  Dwight  and  Ina  you  saw  the 
historical   home    forming   in   clots   in   the 
fluid  wash  of  the  community. 

"He'll  fall  in  love  with  Di,"  said  Ina. 

"And  what  of  that?  Little  daughter  will 
have  many  a  man  fall  in  love  with  her,  I 
should  say." 

"Yes,  but,  Dwight,  what  do  you  think 
of  him?" 

165 


. 

What  do  I  think  of  him?     My  dear 
Ina,  I  have  other  things  to  think  of. 
"But   we   don't   know   anything   abc 


dignity,  "I  know  a  good  deal  about  him. 

With  a  great  air  of  having  done  the 
fatherly  and  found  out  about  this  stranger 
before  bringing  him  into  the  home,  Dwight 
now   related   a  number   of   stray   circunc 
stances  dropped  by  Cornish  in  their  chance 

"frallcS 

"He  has  a  little  inheritance  coming  1 
him-shortly,"  Dwight  wound  up. 

-An   inheritance-really?     How   much, 

Dwight?"  ,    ..r, 

"Now  isn't  that  like  a  woman,      snt  t.^ 

"I  thought  he  was  from  a  good  family, 


said  Ina. 


. 

"My  mercenary  little  pussy  1 

"Well,"  she  said  with  a  sigh,  "I  shouldn  t 
be  surprised  if  Di  did  really  accept  ;  torn. 
A  young  girl  is  awfully  nattered  when  a 

t  atz. 


'September 


good-looking  older  man  pays  her  atten 
tion.  Haven't  you  noticed  that?" 

Dwight  informed  her,  with  an  air  of 
immense  abstraction,  that  he  left  all  such 
matters  to  her.  Being  married  to  Dwight 
was  like  a  perpetual  rehearsal,  with 
Dwight's  self-importance  for  audience. 

A  few  evenings  later,  Cornish  brought 
up  the  music.  There  was  something  over 
powering  in  this  brown-haired  chap  against 
the  background  of  his  negligible  little  shop, 
his  whole  capital  in  his  few  pianos.  For  he 
looked  hopefully  ahead,  woke  with  plans, 
regarded  the  children  in  the  street  as  if, 
conceivably,  children  might  come  within  the 
confines  of  his  life  as  he  imagined  it.  A 
preposterous  little  man.  And  a  preposter 
ous  store,  empty,  echoing,  bare  of  wall,  the 
three  pianos  near  the  front,  the  remainder  of 
the  floor  stretching  away  like  the  corridors 
of  the  lost.  He  was  going  to  get  a  dark 
curtain,  he  explained,  and  furnish  the  back 
part  of  the  store  as  his  own  room.  What 
dignity  in  phrasing,  but  how  mean  that 
167 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 

little  room  would  look— cot  bed,  washbowl 
and  pitcher,  and  little  mirror- almost  cer 
tainly  a  mirror  with  a  wavy  surface,  al 
most  certainly  that. 

"And  then,  you  know,"  he  always  added, 
"I'm  reading  law." 

The  Plows  had  been  asked  in  that  evei 
ing.    Bobby  was  there.    They  were,  Dwight 
Herbert  said,  going  to  have  a  sing. 

Di  was  to  play.  And  Di  was  now  em 
barked  on  the  most  difficult  feat  of  her 
emotional  life,  the  feat  of  remaining  to 
Bobby  Larkin  the  lure,  the  beloved  lure 
the  while  to  Cornish  she  instinctively  playe. 
the  role  of  womanly  little  girl. 

"Up  by  the  festive  lamp,  everybody! 
Dwight  Herbert  cried. 

As    they    gathered    about    the    uprigh 
piano,  that  startled,  Dwightish  instrument, 
standing  in  its  attitude  of  unrest,  Lulu  came 
in  with  another  lamp. 

"Do  you  need  this?"  she  asked. 
They  did  not  need  it,  there  was,  in  fact, 
no  place  to  set  it,  and  this  Lulu  must  have 
168 


September 


known.  But  Dwight  found  a  place.  He 
swept  Ninian's  photograph  from  the  mar 
ble  shelf  of  the  mirror,  and  when  Lulu  had 
placed  the  lamp  there,  Dwight  thrust  the 
photograph  into  her  hands. 

"You  take  care  of  that,"  he  said,  with 
a  droop  of  lid  discernible  only  to  those  who 
— presumably — loved  him.  His  old  atti 
tude  toward  Lulu  had  shown  a  terrible 
sharpening  in  these  ten  days  since  her  re 
turn. 

She  stood  uncertainly,  in  the  thin  black 
and  white  gown  which  Ninian  had  bought 
for  her,  and  held  Ninian's  photograph  and 
looked  helplessly  about.  She  was  moving 
toward  the  door  wrhen  Cornish  called: 

"See  here!     Aren't  you  going  to  sing?" 

"What?"  Dwight  used  the  falsetto. 
"Lulu  sing?  Lulu?" 

She  stood  awkwardly.  She  had  a  piteous 
recrudescence  of  her  old  agony  at  being 
spoken  to  in  the  presence  of  others.  But 
Di  had  opened  the  "Album  of  Old  Favour 
ites,"  which  Cornish  had  elected  to  bring. 
169 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


and  now  she  struck  the  opening  chords  of 
"Bonny  Eloise."  Lulu  stood  still,  look 
ing  rather  piteously  at  Cornish.  Dwight 
offered  his  arm,  absurdly  crooked.  The 
Plows  and  Ina  and  Di  began  to  sing.  Lulu 
moved  forward,  and  stood  a  little  away 
from  them,  and  sang,  too.  She  was  still 
holding  Ninian's  picture.  Dwight  did  not 
sing.  He  lifted  his  shoulders  and  his  eye 
brows  and  watched  Lulu. 

When  they  had  finished,  "Lulu  the  mock 
ing  bird!"  Dwight  cried.    He  said  "ba-ird." 
"Fine!"    cried    Cornish.      "Why,    Miss 
Lulu,  you  have  a  good  voice!" 

"Miss  Lulu  Bett,  the  mocking  ba-ird  1" 
Dwight  insisted. 

Lulu  was  excited,  and  in  some  accession 
of  faint  power.  She  turned  to  him  now, 
quietly,  and  with  a  look  of  appraisal. 

"Lulu  the  dove,"  she  then  surprisingly 
said,  "to  put  up  with  you." 

It  was  her  first  bit  of  conscious  repartee 
to  her  brother-in-law. 

Cornish  was  bending  over  Di. 
170 


September 


"What  next  do  you  say?"  he  asked. 

She  lifted  her  eyes,  met  his  own,  held 
them.  "There's  such  a  lovely,  lovely  sa 
cred  song  here,"  she  suggested,  and  looked 
down. 

"You  like  sacred  music?" 

She  turned  to  him  her  pure  profile,  her 
eyelids  fluttering  up,  and  said:  "I  love  it." 

"That's  it.  So  do  I.  Nothing  like  a 
nice  sacred  piece,"  Cornish  declared. 

Bobby  Larkin,  at  the  end  of  the  piano, 
looked  directly  into  Di's  face. 

"Give  me  ragtime,"  he  said  now,  with 
the  effect  of  bursting  out  of  somewhere. 
"Don't  you  like  ragtime?"  he  put  it  to  her 
directly. 

Di's  eyes  danced  into  his,  they  sparkled 
for  him,  her  smile  was  a  smile  for  him 
alone,  all  their  store  of  common  memories 
was  in  their  look. 

"Let's  try  'My  Rock,  My  Refuge,'" 
Cornish  suggested.  "That's  got  up  real 
attractive." 

Di's  profile  again,  and  her  pleased  voice 
171 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


saying  that  this  was  the  very  one  she  had 
been  hoping  to  hear  him  sing. 

They    gathered    for    "My    Rock,    My 

Refuge." 

"Oh/'  cried  Ina,  at  the  conclusion  of  this 
number,  "I'm  having  such  a  perfectly  beau 
tiful  time.  Isn't  everybody?"  everybody's 
hostess  put  it. 

"Lulu  is,"  said  Dwight,  and  added  softly 
to  Lulu:  "She  don't  have  to  hear  herself 

sing." 

It  was  incredible.     He  was  like  a  bad 
boy  with  a  frog.     About  that  photograph 
of  Ninian  he  found  a  dozen  ways  to  torture 
her,   called   attention  to   it,    showed  it  to 
Cornish,  set  it  on  the  piano  facing  them  all. 
Everybody  must  have  understood — except 
ing  the   Plows.     These   two  gentle   souls 
sang  placidly  through  the  Album  of  Old 
Favourites,  and  at  the  melodies  smiled  hap 
pily  upon  each  other  with  an  air  from  an 
other  world.    Always  it  was  as  if  the  Plows 
walked  some  fair,  inter-penetrating  plane, 
from  which  they  looked  out  as  do  other 
172 


September 


things  not  quite  of  earth,  say,  flowers  and 
fire  and  music. 

Strolling  home  that  night,  the  Plows 
were  overtaken  by  some  one  who  ran  badly, 
and  as  if  she  were  unaccustomed  to  run 
ning. 

"Mis'  Plow,  Mis'  Plow!"  this  one  called, 
and  Lulu  stood  beside  them. 

"Say!"  she  said.  "Do  you  know  of  any 
job  that  I  could  get  me?  I  mean  that  I'd 
know  how  to  do?  A  job  for  money.  .  .  . 
I  mean  a  job.  .  .  ." 

She  burst  into  passionate  crying.  They 
drew  her  home  with  them. 

Lying  awake  sometime  after  midnight, 
Lulu  heard  the  telephone  ring.  She  heard 
Dwight's  concerned  "Is  that  so?"  And 
his  cheerful  "Be  right  there." 

Grandma  Gates  was  sick,  she  heard  him 
tell  Ina.  In  a  few  moments  he  ran  down 
the  stairs.  Next  day  they  told  how  Dwight 
had  sat  for  hours  that  night,  holdin^ 
Grandma  Gates  so  that  her  back  wor 
173 


Miss  Lulu  Beit 


rest  easily  and  she  could  fight  for  her  faint 
breath.     The  kind  fellow  had  only  about 
two  hours  of  sleep  the  whole  night  long. 
Next  day  there  came  a  message  from 
that  woman  who  had  brought  up  Dwight- 
"made  him  what  he  was,"  he  often  com 
placently  accused  her.    It  was  a  note  on  a 
postal  card— she  had  often  written  a  few 
lines  on  a  postal  card  to  say  that  she  had 
sent  the  maple  sugar,  or  could  Ina  get  her 
some  samples.    Now  she  wrote  a  few  lines 
on  a  postal  card  to  say  that  she  was  going 
to  die  with  cancer.    Could  Dwight  and  Ina 
come  to  her  while   she  was   still  able   to 
visit?    If  he  was  not  too  busy.  .  .  . 

Nobody  saw  the  pity  and  the  terror  of 
that  postal  card.  They  stuck  it  up  by  the 
kitchen  clock  to  read  over  from  time  to 
time,  and  before  they  left,  Dwight  lifted 
the  griddle  of  the  cooking-stove  and  burned 
the  postal  card. 

And  before  they  left  Lulu  said:  "Dwight 
w-you  can't  tell  how  long  you'll  be  gone?'^ 
fr(  "Of  course  not.  How  should  I  tell?" 

174. 


September 


"No.  And  that  letter  might  come  while 
you're  away." 

"Conceivably.  Letters  do  come  while  a 
man's  away!" 

"D wight — I  thought  if  you  wouldn't 
mind  if  I  opened  it " 

"Opened  it?" 

"Yes.    You  see,  it'll  be  about  me  mostly 
»> 

"I  should  have  said  that  it'll  be  about  my 
brother  mostly." 

"But  you  know  what  I  mean.  You 
wouldn't  mind  if  I  did  open  it?" 

"But  you  say  you  know  what'll  be  in  it." 

"So  I  did  know — till  you^ — I've  got  to 
see  that  letter,  Dwight." 

"And  so  you  shall.  But  not  till  I  show 
it  to  you.  My  dear  Lulu,  you  know  how 
I  hate  having  my  mail  interfered  with." 

She  might  have  said:   "Small  souls  al 
ways  make  a  point  of  that."    She  said  noth 
ing.     She  watched  them  set  off,  and  kept 
her  mind  on  Ina's  thousand  injunctions. 
175 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


4 'Don't  let  Di  see  much  of  Bobby  Lar- 
kin.  And,  Lulu — if  it  occurs  to  her  to 
have  Mr.  Cornish  come  up  to  sing,  of 
course  you  ask  him.  You  might  ask  him 
to  supper.  And  don't  let  mother  overdo. 
And,  Lulu,  now  do  watch  Monona's  hand 
kerchief — the  child  will  never  take  a  clean 
one  if  I'm  not  here  to  tell  her.  .  .  ." 

She  breathed  injunctions  to  the  very 
step  of  the  'bus. 

In  the  'bus  Dwight  leaned  forward: 

"See  that  you  play  post-office  squarely, 
Lulu!"  he  called,  and  threw  back  his  head 
and  lifted  his  eyebrows. 

In  the  train  he  turned  tragic  eyes  to  his 
wife. 

"Ina,"  he  said.  "It's  ma.  And  she's  go 
ing  to  die.  It  can't  be.  ..." 

Ina  said:  "But  you're  going  to  help  her, 
Dwight,  just  being  there  with  her." 

It  was  true  that  the  mere  presence  of 
the  man  would  bring  a  kind  of  fresh  life  to 
that  worn  frame.    Tact  and  wisdom  and  love 
would  speak  through  him  and  minister. 
170 


September 


Toward  the  end  of  their  week's  absence 
the  letter  from  Ninian  came. 

Lulu  took  it  from  the  post-office  when 
she  went  for  the  mail  that  evening,  dressed 
in  her  dark  red  gown.  There  was  no  other 
letter,  and  she  carried  that  one  letter  in 
her  hand  all  through  the  streets.  She  passed 
those  who  were  surmising  what  her  story 
might  be,  who  were  telling  one  another 
what  they  had  heard.  But  she  knew  hard 
ly  more  than  they.  She  passed  Cornish  in 
the  doorwray  of  his  little  music  shop,  and 
spoke  with  him;  and  there  was  the  letter. 
It  was  so  that  Dwight's  foster  mother's  pos 
tal  card  might  have  looked  on  its  way  to 
be  mailed. 

Cornish  stepped  down  and  overtook  her. 

"Oh,  Miss  Lulu.  I've  got  a  new  song 
or  two " 

She  said  abstractedly:  "Do.    Any  night. 

To-morrow  night — could  you "    It  was 

as  if  Lulu  were  too  preoccupied  to  remem 
ber  to  be  ill  at  ease. 

177 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Cornish  flushed  with  pleasure,  said  that 
he  could  indeed. 

"Come  for  supper,"  Lulu  said. 

Oh,  could  he?  Wouldn't  that  be  .  .  . 
Well,  say!  Such  was  his  acceptance. 

He  came  for  supper.  And  Di  was  not  at 
home.  She  had  gone  off  in  the  country 
with  Jenny  and  Bobby,  and  they  merely 
did  not  return. 

Mrs.  Bett  and  Lulu  and  Cornish  and 
Monona  supped  alone.  All  were  at  ease, 
now  that  they  were  alone.  Especially  Mrs. 
Bett  was  at  ease.  It  became  one  of  her 
young  nights,  her  alive  and  lucid  nights. 
She  was  there.  She  sat  in  Dwight's  chair 
and  Lulu  sat  in  Ina's  chair.  Lulu  had 
picked  flowers  for  the  table — a  task  coveted 
by  her  but  usually  performed  by  Ina.  Lulu 
had  now  picked  Sweet  William  and  had 
filled  a  vase  of  silver  gilt  taken  from  the 
parlour.  Also,  Lulu  had  made  ice-cream. 

"I  don't  see  what  Di  can  be  thinking  of," 
Lulu  said.  "It  seems  like  asking  you  under 
ITS 


September 


false "  She  was  afraid  of  "pretences" 

and  ended  without  it. 

Cornish  savoured  his  steaming  beef  pie, 
with  sage.  "Oh,  well!"  he  said  content 
edly. 

"Kind  of  a  relief,  I  think,  to  have  her 
gone,"  said  Mrs.  Bett,  from  the  fulness  of 
something  or  other. 

"Mother!"  Lulu  said,  twisting  her  smile. 

"Why,  my  land,  I  love  her,"  Mrs.  Bett 
explained,  "but  she  wiggles  and  chitters." 

Cornish  never  made  the  slightest  effort, 
at  any  time,  to  keep  a  straight  face.  The 
honest  fellow  now  laughed  loudly. 

"Well!"  Lulu  thought.  "He  can't  be  so 
very  much  in  love."  And  again  she 
thought:  "He  doesn't  know  anything  about 
the  letter.  He  thinks  Ninian  got  tired  of 
me."  Deep  in  her  heart  there  abode  her 
certainty  that  this  was  not  so. 

By  some  etiquette  of  consent,  Mrs.  Bett 
cleared  the  table  and  Lulu  and  Cornish 
went  into  the  parlour.  There  lay  the  let 
ter  on  the  drop-leaf  side-table,  among  the 
179 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


shells.  Lulu  had  carried  it  there,  where 
she  need  not  see  it  at  her  work.  The  let 
ter  looked  no  more  than  the  advertisement 
of  dental  office  furniture  beneath  it.  Mono- 
na  stood  indifferently  fingering  both. 

"Monona,"  Lulu  said  sharply,  "leave 
them  be!" 

Cornish  was  displaying  his  music.  "Got 
up  quite  attractive,"  he  said — it  was  his 
formula  of  praise  for  his  music. 

"But  we  can't  try  it  over,"  Lulu  said, 
"if  Di  doesn't  come." 

"Well,  say,"  said  Cornish  shyly,  "you 
know  I  left  that  Album  of  Old  Favourites 
here.  Some  of  them  we  know  by  heart." 

Lulu  looked.  "I'll  tell  you  something," 
she  said,  "there's  some  of  these  I  can  play 
with  one  hand — by  ear.  Maybe " 

"Why  sure!"  said  Cornish. 

Lulu  sat  at  the  piano.  She  had  on  the 
wool  chally,  long  sacred  to  the  nights  when 
she  must  combine  her  servant's  estate  with 
the  quality  of  being  Ina's  sister.  She  wore 
her  coral  beads  and  her  cameo  cross.  Is 
180 


September 


her  absence   she  had  caught  the  trick  of 
dressing  her  hair  so  that  it  looked  even 
more  abundant— but  she  had  not  dared  to 
try  it  so  until  to-night,  when  Dwight  was 
gone.    Her  long  wrist  was  curved  high,  her 
thin  hand  pressed  and  fingered  awkwardly, 
and  at  her  mistakes  her  head  dipped  and 
strove  to  make  all  right.     Her  foot  con 
tinuously    touched    the    loud    pedal— the 
blurred  sound  seemed  to  accomplish  more. 
So  she  played  "How  Can  I  Leave  Thee," 
and  they  managed  to  sing  it.    So  she  played 
"Long,  Long  Ago,"  and  "Little  Nell  of 
Narragansett  Bay."     Beyond  open  doors, 
Mrs.  Bett  listened,  sang,  it  may  be,  with 
them;    for   when   the    singers    ceased,   her 
voice  might  be  heard  still  humming  a  loud 
closing  bar. 

"Well!"  Cornish  cried  to  Lulu;  and  then, 
in  the  formal  village  phrase:  "You're  quite 
a  musician." 

"Oh,  no!"  Lulu  disclaimed  it.    She  looked 
up,  flushed,  smiling.    "I've  never  done  this 
in  front  of  anybody,"  she  owned.    "I  don't 
181 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


know  what  Dwight  and  Ina'd  say "  She 

drooped. 

They  rested,  and,  miraculously,  the  air 
of  the  place  had  stirred  and  quickened,  as 
if  the  crippled,  halting  melody  had  some 
power  of  its  own,  and  poured  this  forth, 
even  thus  trampled. 

"I  guess  you  could  do  'most  anything  you 
set  your  hand  to,"  said  Cornish. 
"Oh,  no,"  Lulu  said  again. 
"Sing  and  play  and  cook— 
"But  I  can't  earn  anything.    I'd  like  to 
earn   something."     But  this   she  had  not 
meant  to  say.     She  stopped,  rather  fright 
ened. 

"You  would!     Why,  you  have  it  fine 

here,  I  thought." 

"Oh,  fine,  yes.  Dwight  gives  me  what 
I  have.  And  I  do  their  work." 

"I  see,"  said  Cornish.  "I  never  though* 
of  that,"  he  added.  She  caught  his  specu 
lative  look— he  had  heard  a  tale  or  tw< 
concerning  her  return,  as  who  in  Warbte 
ton  had  not  heard? 

182 


September 


"You're  wondering  why  I  didn't  stay 
with  him!"  Lulu  said  recklessly.  This  was 
no  less  than  wrung  from  her,  but  its  utter 
ance  occasioned  in  her  an  unspeakable  re 
lief. 

"Oh,  no,"  Cornish  disclaimed,  and  col 
oured  and  rocked. 

"Yes,  you  are,"  she  swept  on.  "The 
whole  town's  wondering.  Well,  I'd  like  'em 
to  know,  but  Dwight  won't  let  me  tell." 

Cornish  frowned,  trying  to  understand. 

"' Won't  let  you!'"  he  repeated.  "I 
should  say  that  was  your  own  affair." 

"No.  Not  when  Dwight  gives  me  all  I 
have." 

"Oh,  that "   said  Cornish.     "That's 

not  right" 

"No.  But  there  it  is.  It  puts  me — you 
see  what  it  does  to  me.  They  think — they 
all  think  my — husband  left  me." 

It  was  curious  to  hear  her  bring  out  that 
word — tentatively,  deprecatingly,  like  some 
one  daring  a  foreign  phrase  without  war- 
rani 

188 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Cornish  said  feebly:  "Oh,  well " 

Before  she  willed  it,  she  was  telling  him: 

"He  didn't.     He  didn't  leave  me,"  she 

cried  with  passion.    "He  had  another  wife." 

Incredibly  it  was  as  if  she  were  defending 

both  him  and  herself. 

"Lord  sakes!"  said  Cornish. 
She  poured  it  out,  in  her  passion  to  tell 
some  one,  to  share  her  news  of  her  state 
where  there  would  be  neither  hardness  nor 
censure. 

"We  were  in  Savannah,  Georgia,"  she 
said.  "We  were  going  to  leave  for  Ore 
gon — going  to  go  through  California.  We 
were  in  the  hotel,  and  he  was  going  out  to 
get  the  tickets.  He  started  to  go.  Then 
he  came  back.  I  was  sitting  the  same  as 
there.  He  opened  the  door  again— the 
same  as  here.  I  saw  he  looked  different— 
and  he  said  quick:  'There's  something  you'd 
ought  to  know  before  we  go.'  And  of 
course  I  said,  'What?'  And  he  said  it 
right  out— how  he  was  married  eighteen 
years  ago  and  in  two  years  she  ran  away 
184 


September 


and  she  must  be  dead  but  he  wasn't  sure. 
He  hadn't  the  proofs.  So  of  course  I  came 
home.  But  it  wasn't  him  left  me." 

"No,  no.     Of  course  he  didn't,"  Cornish 

said  earnestly.     "But  Lord  sakes "  he 

said  again.  He  rose  to  walk  about,  found 
it  impracticable  and  sat  down. 

"That's  what  Dwight  don't  want  me  to 
tell— he  thinks  it  isn't  true.  He  thinks— 
he  didn't  have  any  other  wife.  He  thinks 

he  wanted 5     Lulu  looked  up  at  him. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "Dwight  thinks  he 
didn't  want  me." 

"But  why  don't  you  make  your — husband 
— I  mean,  why  doesn't  he  write  to  Mr.  Dea 
con  here,  and  tell  him  the  truth "  Cor 
nish  burst  out. 

Under  this  implied  belief,  she  relaxed  and 
into  her  face  came  its  rare  sweetness. 

"He  has  written,"  she  said.  "The  let 
ter's  there." 

He  followed  her  look,  scowled  at  the  two 
letters. 

"What'd  he  say?" 

185 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 

. 

'Dwight  don't  like  me  to  touch  his  mail. 
I'll  have  to  wait  till  he  comes  back." 
"Lord  sakes!"  said  Cornish. 
This  time  he  did  rise  and  walk  about.    He 
wanted  to  say  something,  wanted  it  with 
passion.    He  paused  beside  Lulu  and  stam 
mered: 

"You you — you're  too  nice  a  girl  to  get 

a  deal  like  this.    Darned  if  you  aren't." 

To  her  own  complete  surprise  Lulu's  eyes 
filled  with  tears,  and  she  could  not  speak. 
She  was  by  no  means  above  self-sympathy. 
"And  there  ain't,"  said  Cornish  sorrow 
fully,  "there  ain't  a  thing  I  can  do." 

And  yet  he  was  doing  much.     He  was 
gentle,  he  was  listening,  and  on  his  face  a 
frown  of   concern.     His   face   continually 
surprised  her,  it  was  so  fine  and  alive  and 
near,  by  comparison  with  Ninian's  loose- 
lipped,      ruddy,      impersonal      look      and 
Dwight's  thin,  high-boned  hardness.     All 
the  time  Cornish  gave  her  something,  in 
stead  of  drawing  upon  her.    Above  all,  he 
was  there,  and  she  could  talk  to  him. 
186 


September 


"It's— it's  funny,"  Lulu  said.  "I'd  be 
awful  glad  if  I  just  could  know  for  sure 
that  the  other  woman  was  alive — if  I 
couldn't  know  she's  dead." 

This  surprising  admission  Cornish  seemed 
to  understand. 

"Sure  you  would,"  he  said  briefly. 

"Cora  Waters,"  Lulu  said.  "Cora 
Waters,  of  San  Diego,  California.  And 
she  never  heard  of  me." 

"No,"  Cornish  admitted.  They  stared  at 
each  other  as  across  some  abyss. 

In  the  doorway  Mrs.  Bett  appeared. 

"I  scraped  up  everything,"  she  re 
marked,  "and  left  the  dishes  set." 

"That's  right,  mamma,"  Lulu  said. 
"Come  and  sit  down." 

Mrs.  Bett  entered  with  a  leisurely  air  of 
doing  the  thing  next  expected  of  her. 

"I  don't  hear  any  more  playin'  and  sing- 
in',"  she  remarked.  "It  sounded  real  nice." 

"We — we  sung  all  I  knew  how  to  play, 
I  guess,  mamma." 

"I  use'  to  play  on  the  melodeon,"  Mrs. 
187 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Bett  volunteered,  and  spread  and  examined 
her  right  hand. 

"Well!"  said  Cornish. 
She  now  told  them  ahout  her  log-house 
in  a  New  England  clearing,  when  she  was 
a  hride.     All  her  store  of  drama  and  life 
came  from  her.     She  rehearsed  it  with  far 
eyes.    She  laughed  at  old  delights,  drooped 
at   old   fears.      She   told   about   her   little 
daughter    who    had    died    at    sixteen— a 
tragedy  such  as  once  would  have  been  re 
newed  in  a  vital  ballad.     At  the  end  she 
yawned  frankly  as  if,  in  some  terrible  so 
phistication,  she  had  been  telling  the  story 
of  some  one  else. 

"Give  us  one  more  piece,"  she  said. 
"Can  we?"  Cornish  asked. 
"I  can  play  'I  Think  When  I  Read  That 
Sweet  Story  of  Old/  "  Lulu  said. 
"That's  the  ticket!"  cried  Cornish. 
They  sang  it,  to  Lulu's  right  hand. 
"That's  the  one  you  picked  out  when 
you  was  a  little  girl,   Lulie,"  cried  Mrs. 

Bett. 

188 


September 


Lulu  had  played  it  now  as  she  must 
have  played  it  then. 

Half  after  nine  and  Di  had  not  returred. 
But  nobody  thought  of  Di.  Cornish  rose 
to  go. 

"What's  them?"  Mrs.  Bett  demanded. 

"Dwight's  letters,  mamma.  You  mustn't 
touch  them!"  Lulu's  voice  was  sharp. 

"Say!"  Cornish,  at  the  door,  dropped  his 
voice.  "If  there  was  anything  I  could  do 
at  any  time,  you'd  let  me  know,  wouldn't 
you?" 

That  past  tense,  those  subjunctives,  un 
consciously  called  upon  her  to  feel  no  in* 
trusion. 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  she  said.  "You  don't 
know  how  good  it  is  to  feel " 

"Of  course  it  is,"  said  Cornish  heartily. 

They  stood  for  a  moment  on  the  porch. 
The  night  was  one  of  low  clamour  from 
the  grass,  tiny  voices,  insisting. 

"Of  course,"  said  Lulu,  "of  course  you 
won't — you  wouldn't " 

"Say  anything?"  he  divined.  "Not  for 
189 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


dollars.     Not,"  he  repeated,  "for  dollars." 
"But   I   knew  you  wouldn't,"   she  told 

him. 

He  took  her   hand.     "Good-night,"   he 
said.    "I've  had  an  awful  nice  time  singing 
and  listening  to  you  talk— well,  of  course— 
I  mean,"  he  cried,  "the  supper  was  just 
fine.    And  so  was  the  music." 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said. 

Mrs.  Bett  came  into  the  hall. 

"Lulie,"  she  said,  "I  guess  you  didn't 
notice — this  one's  from  Ninian." 

"Mother " 

"I  opened  it — why,  of  course  I  did.  It's 
from  Ninian." 

Mrs.  Bett  held  out  the  opened  envelope, 
the  unfolded  letter,  and.  a  yellowed  news 
paper  clipping. 

"See,"  said  the  old  woman,  "says,  'Corie 
Waters,  music  hall  singer— married  last 

night  to  Ninian  Deacon '    Say,  Lulie, 

that  must  be  her.  .  .  ." 

Lulu  threw  out  her  hands. 
190 


September 


"There!"  she  cried  triumphantly.  "He 
was  married  to  her,  just  like  he  said!" 

The  Plows  were  at  breakfast  next  morn 
ing  when  Lulu  came  in  casually  at  the  side- 
door.  Yes,  she  said,  she  had  had  break 
fast.  She  merely  wanted  to  see  them  about 
something.  Then  she  said  nothing,  but 
sat  looking  with  a  troubled  frown  at  Jenny. 
Jenny's  hair  was  about  her  neck,  like  the 
hair  of  a  little  girl,  a  south  window  poured 
light  upon  her,  the  fruit  and  honey  upon 
the  table  seemed  her  only  possible  food. 

"You  look  troubled,  Lulu,"  Mrs.  Plow 
said.  "Is  it  about  getting  work?" 

"No,"  said  Lulu,  "no.  I've  been  places 
to  ask— quite  a  lot  of  places.  I  guess  the 
bakery  is  going  to  let  me  make  cake." 

"I  knew  it  would  come  to  you,"  Mrs. 
Plow  said,  and  Lulu  thought  that  this  was 
a  strange  way  to  speak,  when  she  herself 
had  gone  after  the  cakes.  But  she  kept 
on  looking  about  the  room.  It  was  so 
bright  and  quiet.  As  she  came  in,  Mr. 
191 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Plow  had  been  reading  from  a  book. 
Dwight  never  read  from  a  book  at  table. 

"I  wish "  said  Lulu,  as  she  looked 

at  them.  But  she  did  not  know  what  she 
wished.  Certainly  it  was  for  no  moral  ex 
cellence,  for  she  perceived  none. 

"What  is  it,  Lulu?"  Mr.  Plow  asked, 
and  he  was  bright  and  quiet  too,  Lulu 
thought. 

"Well,"  said  Lulu,  "it's  not  much.  But 
I  wanted  Jenny  to  tell  me  about  last  night." 

"Last  night?" 

"Yes.  Would  you '  Hesitation  was 

her  only  way  of  apology.  "Where  did  you 
go?"  She  turned  to  Jenny. 

Jenny  looked  up  in  her  clear  and  ardent 
fashion:  "We  went  across  the  river  and 
carried  supper  and  then  we  came  home." 

"What  time  did  you  get  home?" 

"Oh,  it  was  still  light.  Long  before 
eight,  it  was." 

Lulu  hesitated  and  flushed,  asked  how 
long  Di  and  Bobby  had  stayed  there  at 
192 


September 


Jenny's;  whereupon  she  heard  that  Di  had 
to  be  home  early  on  account  of  Mr.  Cor 
nish,  so  that  she  and  Bobby  had  not  stayed 
at  all.  To  which  Lulu  said  an  "of  course," 
but  first  she  stared  at  Jenny  and  so  im 
paired  the  strength  of  her  assent.  Almost 
at  once  she  rose  to  go. 

"Nothing  else?"  said  Mrs.  Plow,  catch 
ing  that  look  of  hers. 

Lulu  wanted  to  say:  "My  husband  was 
married  before,  just  as  he  said  he  was." 
But  she  said  nothing  more,  and  went  home. 
There  she  put  it  to  Di,  and  with  her  terrible 
bluntness  reviewed  to  Di  the  testimony. 

"You  were  not  with  Jenny  after  eight 
o'clock.  Where  were  you?"  Lulu  spoke 
formally  and  her  rehearsals  were  evident. 

Di  said:  "When  mamma  comes  home,  I'll 
tell  her." 

With  this  Lulu  had  no  idea  how  to  deal, 
and  merely  looked  at  her  helplessly.    Mrs'. 
i  Bett,  who  was  lacing  her  shoes,  now  said 
casually: 

193 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"No  need  to  wait  till  then.  Her  and 
Bobby  were  out  in  the  side  yard  sitting  in 
the  hammock  till  all  hours." 

Di  had  no  answer  save  her  furious  flush, 
and  Mrs.  Bett  went  on: 

"Didn't  I  tell  you?  I  knew  it  before  the 
company  left,  but  I  didn't  say  a  word. 
Thinks  I,  ' She's  wiggles  and  chitters.'  So 
I  left  her  stay  where  she  was." 

"But,  mother!"  Lulu  cried.  "You  didn't 
even  tell  me  after  he'd  gone." 

"I  forgot  it,"  Mrs.  Bett  said,  "finding 

Ninian's  letter  and  all "   She  talked  of 

Ninian's  letter. 

Di  was  bright  and  alert  and  firm  of 
flesh  and  erect  before  Lulu's  softness  and 

laxness. 

"I  don't  know  what  your  mother'll  say,' 
said  Lulu,  "and  I  don't  know  what  peo- 

ple'll  think." 

"They  won't  think  Bobby  and  I  are  tired 
of  each  other,  anyway,"  said  Di,  and  lefl 

the  room. 

194 


September 


Through   the  day  Lulu   tried  to  think 
what   she   must   do.     About   Di   she   was 
anxious    and    felt    without    power.      She 
thought  of  the  indignation  of  D  wight  and 
Ina  that  Di  had  not  been  more  scrupulous 
ly  guarded.     She  thought  of  Di's  girlish 
folly,    her    irritating    independence — "and 
there,"  Lulu  thought,  "just  the  other  day 
I  was  teaching  her  to  sew."     Her  mind 
dwelt  too  on  Dwight's  furious  anger  at  the 
opening  of  Ninian's  letter.     But  when  all 
this  had  spent  itself,  what  was  she  herself 
to  do?     She  must  leave  his  house  before 
ihe  ordered  her  to  do  so,  when  she  told  him 
?that  she  had  confided  in  Cornish,  as  tell 
lie  must.     But  what  was  she  to  do?    The 
>akery   cake-making   would  not   give  her 
L  roof. 

Stepping  about  the  kitchen  in  her  blue 
:otton  gown,  her  hair  tight  and  flat  as 
eemed  proper  when  one  was  not  dressed, 
ihe  thought  about  these  things.  And  it 
was  strange:  Lulu  bore  no  physical  ap- 
)earance  of  one  in  distress  or  any  anxiety. 
195 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Her  head  was  erect,  her  movements  were 
strong  and  swift,  her  eyes  were  interested. 
She  was  no  drooping  Lulu  with  dragging 
step.  She  was  more  intent,  she  was  some 
how  more  operative  than  she  had  ever  been. 
Mrs.  Bett  was  working  contentedly  be 
side  her,  and  now  and  then  humming  an 
air  of  that  music  of  the  night  before.  The 
sun  surged  through  the  kitchen  door  and 
east  window,  a  returned  oriole  swung  and 
fluted  on  the  elm  above  the  gable.  Wagons 
clattered  by  over  the  rattling  wooden  block 
pavement. 

"Ain't  it  nice  with  nobody  home?"  Mrs. 
Bett  remarked  at  intervals,  like  the  bur 
den  of  a  comic  song. 

"Hush,  mother,"  Lulu  said,  troubled,  her 
ethical  refinements  conflicting  with  her 
honesty. 

"Speak  the  truth  and  shame  the  devil," 
Mrs.  Bett  contended. 

When  dinner  was  ready  at  noon,  Di  did 
not  appear.    A  little  earlier  Lulu  had  heard 
her  moving  about  her  room,  and  she  served 
196 


September 


her  in   expectation   that   she   would   join 
them. 

"Di  must  be  having  the  'tantrim'  this 
time,"  she  thought,  and  for  a  time  said 
nothing.  But  at  length  she  did  say:  "Why 
doesn't  Di  come?  I'd  better  put  her  plate 
in  the  oven." 

Rising  to  do  so,  she  was  arrested  by  her 
mother.  Mrs.  Bett  was  eating  a  baked 
potato,  holding  her  fork  close  to  the  tines, 
and  presenting  a  profile  of  passionate  ab 
sorption. 

"Why,  Di  went  off,"  she  said. 

"Went  off!" 

"Down  the  walk.     Down  the  sidewalk." 

"She  must  have  gone  to  Jenny's,"  said 
Lulu.  "I  wish  she  wouldn't  do  that  with 
out  telling  me." 

Monona  laughed  out  and  shook  her 
straight  hair.  "She'll  catch  it!"  she  cried 
in  sisterly  enjoyment. 

It  was  when  Lulu  had  come  back  from 
the  kitchen  and  was  seated  at  the  table  that 
Mrs.  Bett  observed: 

197 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"I  didn't  think  Inie'd  want  her  to  take 
her  nice  new  satchel." 

"Her  satchel?" 

"Yes.     Inie  wouldn't  take  it  north  her 
self,  but  Di  had  it." 

"Mother,"   said   Lulu,   "when   Di   went 
away  just  now,  was  she  carrying  a  satchel?" 

"Didn't  I  just  tell  you?"  Mrs.  Bett  de 
manded,  aggrieved.    "I  said  I  didn't  think 

Inie- 

"Mother!   Which  way  did  she  go?' 
Monona  pointed  with  her  spoon.     "She 

went  that  way,"  she  said.    "I  seen  her." 
Lulu  looked  at  the  clock.    For  Monona 

had   pointed   toward   the   railway   station. 

The  twelve-thirty  train,  which  every  one 

took  to  the  city  for  shopping,  would  be 

just  about  leaving. 

"Monona,"  said  Lulu,  "don't  you  go  out 

of  the  yard  while  I'm  gone.     Mother,  you 

keep  her " 

Lulu  ran  from  the  house   and  up 
street.     She  was  in  her  blue  cotton  dress, 
her  old  shoes,  she  was  hatless  and  without 
198 


September 


money.  When  she  was  still  two  or  three 
blocks  from  the  station,  she  heard  the 
twelve-thirty  "pulling  out." 

She  ran  badly,  her  ankles  in  their  low, 
loose  shoes  continually  turning,  her  arms 
held  taut  at  her  sides.  So  she  came  down 
the  platform,  and  to  the  ticket  window.  The 
contained  ticket  man,  wonted  to  lost  trains 
and  perturbed  faces,  yet  actually  ceased 
counting  when  he  saw  her: 

"Lenny!  Did  Di  Deacon  take  that 
train?" 

"Sure  she  did,"  said  Lenny. 

"And  Bobby  Larkin?"  Lulu  cared  noth 
ing  for  appearances  now. 

"He  went  in  on  the  Local,"  said  Lenny, 
and  his  eyes  widened. 

"Where?" 

"See."  Lenny  thought  it  through.  "Mill- 
ton,"  he  said.  "Yes,  sure.  Millton.  Both 
of  'em." 

"How  long  till  another  train?" 

"Well,  sir,"  said  the  ticket  man,  "you're 
in  luck,  if  you  was  goin'  too.  Seventeen 
199 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


was  late  this  morning— she'll  be  along,  jerk 
of  a  lamb's  tail." 

"Then,"  said  Lulu,  "you  got  to  give  me 
a  ticket  to  Millton,  without  me  paying  till 
after and  you  got  to  lend  me  two  dol 
lars." 

"Sure  thing,"  said  Lenny,  with  a  man 
ner  of  laying  the  entire  railway  system  at 

her  feet. 

"Seventeen"     would    rather     not    have 
stopped  at  Warbleton,  but  Lenny's  signal 
was  law  on  the  time  card,  and  the  mag 
nificent   yellow    express   slowed   down   for 
Lulu.      Hatless    and   in   her   blue    cotton 
gown,  she  climbed  aboard. 
'  Then   her    old   inefficiency    seized   upon 
her.    What  was  she  going  to  do?    Millton! 
She  had  been  there  but  once,  years  ago- 
how  could  she  ever  find  anybody?     Why 
had  she  not  stayed  in  Warbleton  and  asked 
the    sheriff    or     somebody— no,     not    the 
sheriff.   Cornish,  perhaps.   Oh,  and  Dwight 
and  Ina  were  going  to  be  angry  now!  And 
Di— little  Di-    As  Lulu  thought  of  her  she 
200 


September 


began  to  cry.  She  said  to  herself  that  she 
had  taught  Di  to  sew. 

In  sight  of  Millton,  Lulu  was  seized 
with  trembling  and  physical  nausea.  She 
had  never  been  alone  in  any  unfamiliar 
town.  She  put  her  hands  to  her  hair  and 
for  the  first  time  realized  her  rolled-up 
sleeves.  She  was  pulling  down  these 
sleeves  when  the  conductor  came  through 
the  train. 

"Could  you  tell  me,"  she  said  timidly, 
"the  name  of  the  principal  hotel  in  Mill- 
ton?" 

Ninian  had  asked  this  as  they  neared  Sa 
vannah,  Georgia. 

The  conductor  looked  curiously  at  her. 

"Why,  the  Hess  House,"  he  said. 
"Wasn't  you  expecting  anybody  to  meet 
you?"  he  asked,  kindly. 

"No,"  said  Lulu,  "but  I'm  going  to  find 
my  folks !  Her  voice  trailed  away. 

"Beats  all,"  thought  the  conductor,  using 
his  utility  formula  for  the  universe. 

In  Millton  Lulu's  inquiry  for  the  Hess 
201 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


House  produced  no  consternation.  Nobody 
paid  any  attention  to  her.  She  was  almost 
certainly  taken  to  be  a  new  servant  there. 
"You  stop  feeling  so!"  she  said  to  her 
self  angrily  at  the  lobby  entrance.  "Ain't 
you  been  to  that  big  hotel  in  Savannah, 

Georgia?" 

The  Hess  House,  Million,  had  a  trad] 
tion  of  its  own  to  maintain,  it  seemed,  and 
they  sent  her  to  the  rear  basement  door. 
She  obeyed  meekly,  but  she  lost  a  good  deal 
of  time  before  she  found  herself  at  the 
end  of  the  office  desk.  It  was  still  longer 
before  any  one  attended  her. 

"Please,  sir!"  she  burst  out.    "See  if  I 
Deacon  has  put  her  name  on  your  book." 
Her  appeal  was  tremendous,  compelling. 
The  young  clerk  listened  to  her,   showed 
her  where  to  look  in  the  register.     When 
only   strange  names   and   strange   writing 
presented  themselves  there,  he  said: 
"Tried  the  parlour?" 
And  directed  her  kindly   and  with  his 
thumb,  and  in  the  other  hand  a  pen  di- 
202 


„  September 


vorced  from  his  ear  for  the  express  pur 
pose. 

In  crossing  the  lobby  in  the  hotel  at 
Savannah,  Georgia,  Lulu's  most  pressing 
problem  had  been  to  know  where  to  look. 
But  now  the  idlers  in  the  Hess  House  lobby 
did  not  exist.  In  time  she  found  the  door 
of  the  intensely  rose-coloured  reception 
room.  There,  in  a  fat,  rose-coloured  chair, 
beside  a  cataract  of  lace  curtain,  sat  Di, 
alone. 

Lulu  entered.  She  had  no  idea  what  to 
say.  When  Di  looked  up,  started  up, 
frowned,  Lulu  felt  as  if  she  herself  were 
the  culprit.  She  said  the  first  thing  that 
occurred  to  her: 

"I  don't  believe  mamma'll  like  your  tak 
ing  her  nice  satchel." 

"Well!"  said  Di,  exactly  as  if  she  had 
been  at  home.  And  superadded:  "My 
goodness!"  And  then  cried  rudely:  "What 
are  you  here  for?" 

"For   you,"    said   Lulu.      "You — you — - 
you'd  ought  not  to  be  here,  Di." 
203 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"What's  that  to  you?"  Di  cried. 
"Why,  Di,  you're  just  a  little  girl- 
Lulu   saw  that  this  was   all  wrong,   and 
stopped  miserably.     How  was  she  to  go 
on?     "Di,"  she  said,  "if  you  and  Bobby 
want  to  get  married,  why  not  let  us  get 
you  up  a  nice  wedding  at  home?"  And  she 
saw  that  this  sounded  as  if  she  were  talk 
ing  about  a  tea-party. 

"Who  said  we  wanted  to  be  married?" 
"Well,  he's  here." 
"Who  said  he's  here?" 
"Isn't  he?" 

Di  sprang  up.  "Aunt  Lulu,"  she  said, 
"you're  a  funny  person  to  be  telling  me 
what  to  do." 

Lulu  said,  flushing:  "I  love  you  just  the 
same  as  if  I  was  married  happy,  in  a 
home." 

"Well,  you  aren't!"  cried  Di  cruelly,  "and 
I'm  going  to  do  just  as  I  think  best." 

Lulu  thought  this  over,  her  look  grave 
and  sai     She  tried  to  find  something  to 
204. 


September 


say.    "What  do  people  say  to  people,"  she 
wondered,  "when  it's  like  this?" 

"Getting  married  is  for  your  whole  life," 
was  all  that  came  to  her. 

"Yours  wasn't,"  Di  flashed  at  her. 

Lulu's  colour  deepened,  hut  there  seemed 
to  be  no  resentment  in  her.  She  must  deal 
with  this  right — that  was  what  her  manner 
seemed  to  say.  And  how  should  she  deal? 

"Di,"  she  cried,  "come  back  with  me — 
and  wait  till  mamma  and  papa  get  home." 

"That's  likely.  They  say  I'm  not  to  be 
married  till  I'm  twenty-one." 

"Well,  but  how  young  that  is!" 

"It  is  to  you." 

"Di!   This  is  wrong — it  is  wrong." 

"There's  nothing  wrong  about  getting 
married — if  you  stay  married." 

"Well,  then  it  can't  be  wrong  to  let  them 
know." 

"It  isn't.     But  they'd  treat  me  wrong. 
They'd  make  me  stay  at  home.     And  I 
won't  stay  at  home — I  won't  stay  there. 
They  act  as  if  I  was  ten  years  old." 
205 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Abruptly  in  Lulu's  face  there  came  a 
light  of  understanding. 

"Why,  Di,"  she  said,  "do  you  feel  that 
way  too?" 

Di  missed  this.     She  went  on: 

"I'm  grown  up.  I  feel  just  as  grown 
up  as  they  do.  And  I'm  not  allowed  to  do 
a  thing  I  feel.  I  want  to  be  away — I  will 
be  away!" 

"I  know  about  that  part,"  Lulu  said. 

She  now  looked  at  Di  with  attention. 
Was  it  possible  that  Di  was  suffering  in  the 
air  of  that  home  as  she  herself  suffered? 
She  had  not  thought  of  that.  There  Di 
had  seemed  so  young,  so  dependent,  so — 
asquirm.  Here,  by  herself,  waiting  for 
Bobby,  in  the  Hess  House  at  Millton,  she 
was  curiously  adult.  Would  she  be  adult 
if  she  were  let  alone?  ) 

"You  don't  know  what  it's  like,"  Di 
cried,  "to  be  hushed  up  and  laughed  at 
and  paid  no  attention  to,  everything  you 
say." 

"Don't  I?"  said  Lulu.    "Don't  I?" 
206 


September 


She  was  breathing  quickly  and  looking 
at  Di.  If  this  was  why  Di  was  leaving 
home.  .  .  . 

"But,  Di,"  she  cried,  "do  you  love  Bobby 
Larkin?" 

By  this  Di  was  embarrassed.  "I've  got 
to  marry  somebody,"  she  said,  "and  it 
might  as  well  be  him." 

"But  is  it  him?" 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Di.  "But,"  she  added, 
"I  know  I  could  love  almost  anybody  real 
nice  that  was  nice  to  me."  And  this  she 
said,  not  in  her  own  right,  but  either  she 
had  picked  it  up  somewhere  and  adopted 
it,  or  else  the  terrible  modernity  and  hon 
esty  of  her  day  somehow  spoke  through 
her,  for  its  own.  But  to  Lulu  it  was  as 
if  something  familiar  turned  its  face  to 
be  recognised. 

"Di!"  she  cried. 

"It's  true.     You  ought  to  know  that." 
She  waited  for  a  moment.     "You  did  it," 
she  added.     "Mamma  said  so." 
207 


Miss  Lulu  Beit 


At  this  onslaught  Lulu  was  stupefied. 
For  she  began  to  perceive  its  truth. 

"I  know  what  I  want  to  do,  I  guess," 
Di  muttered,  as  if  to  try  to  cover  what 
she  had  said. 

Up  to  that  moment,  Lulu  had  been  feel 
ing  intensely  that  she  understood  Di,  but 
that  Di  did  not  know  this.  Now  Lulu  felt 
that  she  and  Di  actually  shared  some  un 
suspected  sisterhood.  It  was  not  only  that 
they  were  both  badgered  by  Dwight.  It 
was  more  than  that.  They  were  two  women. 
And  she  must  make  Di  know  that  she 
understood  her. 

"Di,"  Lulu  said,  breathing  hard,  "what 
you  just  said  is  true,  I  guess.  Don't  you 
think  I  don't  know.  And  now  I'm  going 
to  tell  you- 

She  might  have  poured  it  all  out,  claimed 
her  kinship  with  Di  by  virtue  of  that  which 
had  happened  in  Savannah,  Georgia.  But 
Di  said: 

"Here  come  some  ladies.    And  goodness, 
look  at  the  way  you  look!" 
208 


September 


Lulu  glanced  down.  "I  know,"  she 
said,  "but  I  guess  you'll  have  to  put  up 
with  me." 

The  two  women  entered,  looked  about 
with  the  complaisance  of  those  who  ex 
amine  a  hotel  property,  find  criticism  in 
cumbent,  and  have  no  errand.  These  two 
women  had  outdressed  their  occasion.  In 
their  presence  Di  kept  silence,  turned  away 
her  head,  gave  them  to  know  that  she  had 
nothing  to  do  with  this  blue  cotton  person 
beside  her.  When  they  had  gone  on,  "What 
do  you  mean  by  my  having  to  put  up  with 
you?"  Di  asked  sharply. 

"I  mean  I'm  going  to  stay  with  you." 

Di  laughed  scornfully — she  was  again 
the  rebellious  child.  "I  guess  Bobby'U  have 
something  to  say  about  that,"  she  said  in 
solently. 

"They  left  you  in  my  charge." 

"But  I'm  not  a  baby — the  idea,  Aunt 
Lulu!" 

"I'm  going  to  stay  right  with  you,"  said 
Lulu.  She  wondered  what  she  should  do 
209 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


if  Di  suddenly  marched  away  from  her, 
through  that  bright  lobby  and  into  the 
street.  She  thought  miserably  that  she 
must  follow.  And  then  her  whole  concern 
for  the  ethics  of  Di's  course  was  lost  in 
her  agonised  memory  of  her  terrible,  broken 

shoes. 

Di  did  not  march  away.  She  turned  her 
back  squarely  upon  Lulu,  and  looked  out 
of  the  window.  For  her  life  Lulu  could 
think  of  nothing  more  to  say.  She  was  now 
feeling  miserably  on  the  defensive. 

They  were  sitting  in  silence  when  Bobby 
Larkin  came  into  the  room. 

Four  Bobby  Larkins  there  were,  in  im 
mediate  succession. 

The  Bobby  who  had  just  come  down  the 
street  was  distinctly  perturbed,  came  hur 
rying,  now  and  then  turned  to  the  left 
when  he  met  folk,  glanced  sidewise  here  and 
there,  was  altogether  anxious  and  ill  at 

ease. 

The  Bobby  who  came  through  the  hotel 
was  a  Bobby  who  had  on  an  importance 
210 


September 


assumed  for  the  crisis  of  threading  the 
lobby — a  Bobby  who  wished  it  to  be  under 
stood  that  here  he  was,  a  man  among  men, 
in  the  Hess  House  at  Millton. 

The  Bobby  who  entered  the  little  rose 
room  was  the  Bobby  who  was  no  less  than 
overwhelmed  with  the  stupendous  charac 
ter  of  the  adventure  upon  which  he  found 
himself. 

The  Bobby  who  incredibly  came  face  to 
face  with  Lulu  was  the  real  Bobby  into 
whose  eyes  leaped  instant,  unmistakable  re 
lief. 

Di  flew  to  meet  him.  She  assumed  all 
the  pretty  agitations  of  her  role,  ignored 
Lulu. 

"Bobby!  Is  it  all  right?" 

Bobby  looked  over  her  head. 

"Miss  Lulu,"  he  said  fatuously.  "If  it 
ain't  Miss  Lulu." 

He  looked  from  her  to  Di,  and  did  not 
take  in  Di's  resigned  shrug. 

"Bobby,"  said  Di,  "she's  come  to  stop 
211 




us  getting  married,  but  she  can't.    I've  told 

her  so." 

"She  don't  have  to  stop  us,"  quoth  1 
gloomily,  "we're  stopped." 

"What  do  you  mean?"    Di  laid  one  han 
flatly  along  her  cheek,  instinctive  in  her 
melodrama. 

Bobby  drew  down  his  brows,  set  1 
on  his  leg,  elbow  out. 

"We're  minors,"  said  he. 

"Well,  gracious,  you  didn't  have  to 

them  that." 

"No.    They  knew  I  was." 
"But,  Silly!   Why  didn't  you  tell 
you're  not?" 
"But  I  am." 

Di  stared.     "For  pity  sakes,"  she  Mid, 
"don't  you  know  how  to  do  anything?" 

"What  would  you  have  me  do?' 
quired  indignantly,  with  his  head  held  very 
stiff,  and  with  a  boyish,  admirable  lift  of  chin. 
"Why,  tell  them  we're  both  twenty-one. 
We  look  it.    We  know  we're  responsible 
212 


September 


— that's  all  they  care  for.     Well,  you  are 
a  funny  .  .  ." 

"You  wanted  me  to  lie?"  he  said. 
"Oh,  don't  make  out  you  never  told  a 
fib." 

"Well,  but  this "  he  stared  at  her. 

"I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing,"  Di 
cried  accusingly. 

"Anyhow/'  he  said,  "there's  nothing  to 
do  now.  The  cat's  out.  I've  told  our  ages. 
We've  got  to  have  our  folks  in  on  it." 

"Is  that  all  you  can  think  of?"  she  de 
manded. 

"What  else?" 

"Why,  come  on  to  Bainbridge  or  Holt, 
and  tell  them  we're  of  age,  and  be  mar 
ried  there." 

"Di,"  said  Bobby,  "why,  that'd  be  a 
rotten  go." 

Di  said,  oh  very  well,  if  he  didn't  want 
to  marry  her.  He  replied  stonily  that  of 
course  he  wanted  to  marry  her.  Di  stuck 
out  her  little  hand.  She  was  at  a  disad 
vantage.  She  could  use  no  arts,  with  Lulu 
213 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


sitting  there,  looking  on.  "Well,  then, 
come  on  to  Bainbridge,"  Di  cried,  and  rose. 

Lulu  was  thinking:  "What  shall  I  say? 
I  don't  know  what  to  say.  I  don't  know 
what  I  can  say."  Now  she  also  rose,  and 
laughed  awkwardly.  "I've  told  Di,"  she 
said  to  Bobby,  "that  wherever  you  two  go, 
I'm  going  too.  Di's  folks  left  her  in  my 
care,  you  know.  So  you'll  have  to  take 
me  along,  I  guess."  She  spoke  in  a  man 
ner  of  distinct  apology. 

At  this  Bobby  had  no  idea  what  to  re 
ply.  He  looked  down  miserably  at  the 
carpet.  His  whole  manner  was  a  mute 
testimony  to  his  participation  in  the  eternal 
query:  How  did  I  get  into  it? 

"Bobby,"  said  Di,  "are  you  going  to  let 
her  lead  you  home?" 

This  of  course  nettled  him,  but  not  in 
the  manner  on  which  Di  had  counted.  He 
said  loudly: 

"I'm  not  going  to  Bainbridge  or  Holt  01 
any  town  and  lie,  to  get  you  or  any  othei 

girl." 

214 


September 


Di's  head  lifted,  tossed,  turned  from  him. 
"You're  about  as  much  like  a  man  in  a 
story,"  she  said,  "as — as  papa  is." 

The  two  idly  inspecting  women  again  en 
tered  the  rose  room,  this  time  to  stay.  They 
inspected  Lulu  too.  And  Lulu  rose  and 
stood  between  the  lovers. 

"Hadn't  we  all  better  get  the  four-thirty 
to  Warbleton?"  she  said,  and  swallowed. 

"Oh,  if  Bobby  wants  to  back  out " 

said  Di. 

"I  don't  want  to  back  out,"  Bobby  con 
tended  furiously,  "b-b-but  I  won't " 

"Come  on,  Aunt  Lulu,"  said  Di  grand- 

ly. 

Bobby  led  the  way  through  the  lobby,  Di 
followed,  and  Lulu  brought  up  the  rear. 
She  walked  awkwardly,  eyes  down,  her 
hands  stiffly  held.  Heads  turned  to  look 
at  her.  They  passed  into  the  street. 

"You  two  go  ahead,"  said  Lulu,  "so  they 
won't  think " 

They  did  so,  and  she  followed,  and  did 
215 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


not  know  where  to  look,  and  thought  of  her 
broken  shoes. 

At  the  station,  Bobby  put  them  on  the 
train  and  stepped  back.  He  had,  he  said, 
something  to  see  to  there  in  Millton.  Di 
did  not  look  at  him.  And  Lulu's  good 
bye  spoke  her  genuine  regret  for  all. 

"Aunt  Lulu,"  said  Di,  "you  needn't 
think  I'm  going  to  sit  with  you.  You  look 
as  if  you  were  crazy.  I'U  sit  back  here." 

"All  right,  Di,"  said  Lulu  humbly. 


It  was  nearly  six  o'clock  when  they  ar 
rived  at  the  Deacons'.  Mrs.  Bett  stood  on 
the  porch,  her  hands  rolled  in  her  apron. 

"Surprise  for  you!"  she  called  brightly. 

Before  they  had  reached  the  door,  Ina 
bounded  from  the  hall. 

"Darling!" 

She  seized  upon  Di,  kissed  her  loudly, 
drew  back  from  her,  saw  the  travelling  bag. 

"My  new  bag!"  she  cried.     "Di!    What 
have  you  got  that  for?" 
216 


September 


In  any  embarrassment  Di's  instinctive 
defence  was  hearty  laughter.  She  now 
laughed  heartily,  kissed  her  mother  again, 
and  ran  up  the  stairs. 

Lulu  slipped  by  her  sister,  and  into  the 
kitchen. 

"Well,  where  have  you  been?"  cried  Ina. 
"I  declare,  I  never  saw  such  a  family. 
Mamma  don't  know  anything  and  neither 
of  you  will  tell  anything." 

"Mamma  knows  a-plenty,"  snapped  Mrs. 
Bett. 

Monona,  who  was  eating  a  sticky  gift, 
jumped  stiffly  up  and  down. 

"You'll  catch  it— you'll  catch  it!"  she 
sent  out  her  shrill  general  warning. 

Mrs.  Bett  followed  Lulu  to  the  kitchen* 
"I  didn't  tell  Inie  about  her  bag  and  now 
she  says  I  don't  know  nothing,"  she  com 
plained.  "There  I  knew  about  the  bag 
the  hull  time,  but  I  wasn't  going  to  tell 
her  and  spoil  her  gettin'  home."  She 
banged  the  stove-griddle.  "I've  a  good  no- 
217 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


tion  not  to  eat  a  mouthful  o'  supper,5'  she 
announced. 

"Mother,  please!"  said  Lulu  passionately. 
"Stay  here.  Help  me.  I've  got  enough 
to  get  through  to-night." 

Dwight  had  come  home.  Lulu  could 
hear  Ina  pouring  out  to  him  the  mysterious 
circumstance  of  the  bag,  could  hear  the 
exaggerated  air  of  the  casual  with  which 
he  always  received  the  excitement  of  an 
other,  and  especially  of  his  Ina.  Then  she 
heard  Ina's  feet  padding  up  the  stairs,  and 
after  that  Di's  shrill,  nervous  laughter. 
Lulu  felt  a  pang  of  pity  for  Di,  as  if  she 
herself  were  about  to  face  them. 

There  was  not  time  both  to  prepare  sup 
per  and  to  change  the  blue  cotton  dress. 
In  that  dress  Lulu  was  pouring  water  when 
Dwight  entered  the  dining-room. 

"Ah!"  said  he.    "Our  festive  ball-gown." 

She  gave  him  her  hand,  with  her  peculiar 

sweetness  of  expression — almost  as  if  she 

were  sorry  for  him  or  were  bidding  him 

good-bye. 

218 


,  September 


"That  shows  who  you  dress  for!"  he 
cried.  "You  dress  for  me.  Ina,  aren't  you 
jealous?  Lulu  dresses  for  me!" 

Ina  had  come  in  with  Di,  and  both  were 
excited,  and  Ina's  head  was  moving  stiffly, 
as  in  all  her  indignations.  Mrs.  Bett  had 
thought  better  of  it  and  had  given  her  pres 
ence.  Already  Monona  was  singing. 

"Lulu,"  said  Dwight,  "really?  Can't 
you  run  up  and  slip  on  another  dress?" 

Lulu  sat  down  in  her  place.  "No,"  she 
said.  "I'm  too  tired.  I'm  sorry,  Dwight." 

"It  seems  to  me "  he  began. 

"I  don't  want  any,"  said  Monona. 

But  no  one  noticed  Monona,  and  Ina  did 
not  defer  even  to  Dwight.  She,  who  meas 
ured  delicate,  troy  occasions  by  avoirdupois, 
said  brightly: 

"Now,  Di.  You  must  tell  us  all  about 
it.  Where  had  you  and  Aunt  Lulu  been 
with  mamma's  new  bag?" 

"Aunt  Lulu!"  cried  Dwight.  "Aha!  So 
Aunt  Lulu  was  along.  Well  now,  that 
alters  it." 

219 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"How  does  it?"  asked  his  Ina  crossly. 

"Why,  when  Aunt  Lulu  goes  on  a 
jaunt,"  said  Dwight  Herbert,  "events  foe- 
gin  to  event." 

"Come,  Di,  let's  hear,"  said  Ina. 

"Ina,"  said  Lulu,  "first  can't  we  hear 
something  about  your  visit?  How  is " 

Her  eyes  consulted  Dwight.  His  features 
dropped,  the  lines  of  his  face  dropped,  its 
muscles  seemed  to  sag.  A  look  of  suffer 
ing  was  in  his  eyes. 

"She'll  never  be  any  better,"  he  said.  "I 
know  we've  said  good-bye  to  her  for  the 
last  time." 

"Oh,  Dwight!"  said  Lulu. 

"She  knew  it  too,"  he  said.  "It— it  put 
me  out  of  business,  I  can  tell  you.  She 
gave  me  my  start — she  took  all  the  care 
of  me — taught  me  to  read — she's  the  only 

mother  I  ever  knew '  He  stopped,  and 

opened  his  eyes  wide  on  account  of  their 
dimness. 

"They  said  she  was  like  another  person 
while  Dwight  was  there,"  said  Ina,  and 
220 


September 


entered  upon  a  length  of  particulars,  and 
details  of  the  journey.  These  details  Dwight 
interrupted :  Couldn't  Lulu  remember  that 
he  liked  sage  on  the  chops?  He  could 
hardly  taste  it.  He  had,  he  said,  told  her 
this  thirty-seven  times.  And  when  she  said 
that  she  was  sorry,  "Perhaps  you  think  I'm 
sage  enough,"  said  the  witty  fellow. 

"Dwightie!"  said  Ina.  "Mercy."  She 
shook  her  head  at  him.  "Now,  Di,"  she 
went  on,  keeping  the  thread  all  this  time. 
"Tell  us  your  story.  About  the  bag." 

"Oh,  mamma,"  said  Di,  "let  me  eat  my 
supper." 

"And  so  you  shall,  darling.  Tell  it  in 
your  own  way.  Tell  us  first  what  you've 
done  since  we've  been  away.  Did  Mr.  Corn 
ish  come  to  see  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Di,  and  flashed  a  look  at 
Lulu. 

But  eventually  they  were  back  again  be 
fore  that  new  black  bag.     And  Di  would 
say  nothing.     She  laughed,  squirmed,  grew 
irritable,  laughed  again. 
221 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Lulu!"  Ina  demanded.  "You  were  with 
her — where  in  the  world  had  you  been? 
Why,  but  you  couldn't  have  been  with  her 
— in  that  dress.  And  yet  I  saw  you  come 
in  the  gate  together.'* 

"What!"  cried  Dwight  Herbert,  drawing 
down  his  brows.  "You  certainly  did  not 
so  far  forget  us,  Lulu,  as  to  go  on  the 
street  in  that  dress?" 

"It's  a  good  dress,"  Mrs.  Bett  now  said 
positively.  "Of  course  it's  a  good  dress. 
Lulie  wore  it  on  the  street — of  course  she 
did.  She  was  gone  a  long  time.  I  made 
me  a  cup  o'  tea,  and  then  she  hadn't  come." 

"Well,"  said  Ina,  "I  never  heard  any 
thing  like  this  before.  Where  were  you 
both?" 

One  would  say  that  Ina  had  entered  into 
the  family  and  been  born  again,  identified 
with  each  one.  Nothing  escaped  her. 
Dwight,  too,  his  intimacy  was  incredible. 

"Put   an   end  to   this,   Lulu,"   he   com 
manded.    "Where  were  you  two — since  you 
make  such  a  mystery?" 
222 


,  September 


Di's  look  at  Lulu  was  piteous,  terrified. 
Di's  fear  of  her  father  was  now  clear  to 
Lulu.  And  Lulu  feared  him  too.  Abruptly 
she  heard  herself  temporising,  for  the 
moment  making  common  cause  with  Di. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "we  have  a  little  secret. 
Can't  we  have  a  secret  if  we  want  one?" 

"Upon  my  word,"  Dwight  commented, 
"she  has  a  beautiful  secret.  I  don't  know 
about  your  secrets,  Lulu." 

Every  time  that  he  did  this,  that  fleet, 
lifted  look  of  Lulu's  seemed  to  bleed. 

"I'm  glad  for  my  dinner,"  remarked 
Monona  at  last.  "Please  excuse  me."  On 
that  they  all  rose.  Lulu  stayed  in  the 
kitchen  and  did  her  best  to  make  her  tasks 
indefinitely  last.  She  had  nearly  finished 
when  Di  burst  in. 

"Aunt  Lulu,  Aunt  Lulu!"  she  cried. 
"Come  in  there — come.  I  can't  stand  it. 
What  am  I  going  to  do?" 

"Di,  dear,"  said  Lulu.  "Tell  your  mother 
— you  must  tell  her." 

"She'll  cry,"  Di  sobbed.  "Then  she'll 
223 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


tell  papa — and  he'll  never  stop  talking  about 
it.  I  know  him — every  day  he'll  keep  it 
going.  After  he  scolds  me  it'll  be  a  joke 
for  months.  I'll  die— I'll  die,  Aunt  Lulu." 

Ina's  voice  sounded  in  the  kitchen.  "What 
are  you  two  whispering  about?  I  declare, 
mamma's  hurt,  Di,  at  the  way  you're  act- 
ing  ...  " 

"Let's  go  out  on  the  porch,"  said  Lulu, 
and  when  Di  would  have  escaped,  Ina  drew 
her  with  them,  and  handled  the  situation  in 
the  only  way  that  she  knew  how  to  handle 
it,  by  complaining:  Well,  but  what  in  this 
world  .  .  . 

Lulu  threw  a  white  shawl  about  her  blue 
cotton  dress. 

"A  bridal  robe,"  said  Dwight.  "How's 
that,  Lulu — what  are  you  wearing  a  bridal 
robe  for — eh?" 

She  smiled  dutifully.  There  was  no  need 
to  make  him  angry,  she  reflected,  before  she 
must.  He  had  not  yet  gone  into  the  par 
lour — had  not  yet  asked  for  his  mail. 

It  was  a  warm  dusk,  moonless,  windless. 
224 


^September 


The  sounds  of  the  village  street  came  in— 
laughter,  a  touch  at  a  piano,  a  chiming  clock. 
Lights  starred  and  quickened  in  the  blurred 
houses.  Footsteps  echoed  on  the  board 
walks.  The  gate  opened.  The  gloom 
yielded  up  Cornish. 

Lulu  was  inordinately  glad  to  see  him. 
To  have  the  strain  of  the  time  broken  by 
him  was  like  hearing,  on  a  lonely  winter 
wakening,  the  clock  strike  reassuring  dawn. 

"Lulu,"  said  Dwight  low,  "y°ur  dress. 
Do  go!" 

Lulu  laughed.  "The  bridal  shawl  takes 
off  the  curse,"  she  said. 

Cornish,  in  his  gentle  way,  asked  about 
the  journey,  about  the  sick  woman — and 
Dwight  talked  of  her  again,  and  this  time 
his  voice  broke.  Di  was  curiously  silent. 
When  Cornish  addressed  her,  she  replied 
simply  and  directly — the  rarest  of  Di's 
manners,  in  fact  not  Di's  manner  at  all. 
Lulu  spoke  not  at  all — it  was  enough  to 
have  this  respite. 

After  a  little  the  gate  opened  again.    It 
225 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


was  Bobby.  In  the  besetting  fear  that  he 
was  leaving  Di  to  face  something  alone, 
Bobby  had  arrived. 

And  now  Di's  spirits  rose.     To  her  his 
presence  meant  repentance,  recapitulation. 
Her  laugh  rang  out,  her  replies  came  arch 
ly.    But  Bobby  was  plainly  not  playing  up. 
Bobby  was,  in  fact,  hardly  less  than  glum. 
It  was  Dwight,  the  irrepressible  fellow,  who 
kept  the  talk  going.     And  it  was  no  less 
than  deft,  his  continuously  displayed  ability 
playfully  to  pierce  Lulu.     Some  one  had 
"married   at   the   drop   of  the   hat.     You 
know  the  kind  of  girl?"     And  some  one 
"made  up  a  likely  story  to  soothe  her  own 
pride— you  know  how  they  do  that?" 

"Well,"  said  Ina,  "my  part,  I  think  the 
most  awful  thing  is  to  have  somebody  one 
loves  keep  secrets  from  one.  No  wonder 
folks  get  crabbed  and  spiteful  with  such 
treatment." 

"Mamma!"  Monona  shouted  from  her 
room.  "Come  and  hear  me  say  my 

prayers!" 

226 


September 


Monona  entered  this  request  with  pre 
cision  on  Ina's  nastiest  moments,  but  she 
always  rose,  unabashed,  and  went,  motherly 
and  dutiful,  to  hear  devotions,  as  if  that 
function  and  the  process  of  living  ran 
their  two  divided  channels. 

She  had  dispatched  this  errand  and  was 
returning  when  Mrs.  Bett  crossed  the  lawn 
from  Grandma  Gates's,  where  the  old  lady 
had  taken  comfort  in  Mrs.  Bett's  ministra 
tions  for  an  hour. 

"Don't  you  help  me,"  Mrs.  Bett  warned 
them  away  sharply.  "I  guess  I  can  help 
myself  yet  awhile." 

She  gained  her  chair.  And  still  in  her 
momentary  rule  of  attention,  she  said 
clearly: 

"I  got  a  joke.  Grandma  Gates  says  it's 
all  over  town  Di  and  Bobby  Larkin  eloped 
off  together  to-day.  He!"  The  last  was 
a  single  note  of  laughter,  high  and  brief. 

The  silence  fell. 

"What  nonsense!"  Dwight  Herbert  said 
angrily. 

227 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


But  Ina  said  tensely:  "Is  it  nonsense? 
Haven't  I  been  trying  and  trying  to  find 
out  where  the  black  satchel  went?  Di!" 

Di's  laughter  rose,  but  it  sounded  thin 
and  false. 

"Listen  to  that,  Bobby,"  she  said. 
"Listen!" 

"That  won't  do,  Di,"  said  Ina.  "You 
can't  deceive  mamma  and  don't  you  try!" 
Her  voice  trembled,  she  was  frantic  with 
loving  and  authentic  anxiety,  but  she  was 
without  power,  she  overshadowed  the  real 
gravity  of  the  moment  by  her  indignation. 

"Mrs.  Deacon began  Bobby,   and 

stood  up,  very  straight  and  manly  before 
them  all. 

But  Dwight  intervened,  Dwight,  the 
father,  the  master  of  his  house.  Here  was 
something  requiring  him  to  act.  So  the 
father  set  his  face  like  a  mask  and  brought 
down  his  hand  on  the  rail  of  the  porch.  It 
was  as  if  the  sound  shattered  a  thousand 
filaments — where  ? 

228 


September 


"Diana!"  his  voice  was  terrible,  demanded 
a  response,  ravened  among  them. 

"Yes,  papa,"  said  Di,  very  small. 

"Answer  your  mother.  Answer  me.  Is 
there  anything  to  this  absurd  tale?" 

"No,  papa,"  said  Di,  trembling. 

"Nothing  whatever?" 

"Nothing  whatever." 

"Can  you  imagine  how  such  a  ridiculous 
report  started?" 

"No,  papa." 

"Very  well.  Now  we  know  where  we 
are.  If  anyone  hears  this  report  repeated, 
send  them  to  me." 

"Well,  but  that  satchel "  said  Ina,  to 

whom  an  idea  manifested  less  as  a  function 
than  as  a  leech. 

"One  moment,"  said  Dwight.  "Lulu  will 
of  course  verify  what  the  child  has  said." 

There  had  never  been  an  adult  moment 
until  that  day  when  Lulu  had  not  in 
stinctively  taken  the  part  of  the  parents, 
of  all  parents.  Now  she  saw  Dwight's 
cruelty  to  her  as  his  cruelty  to  Di;  she  saw 
229 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Ina,  herself  a  child  in  maternity,  as  igno 
rant  of  how  to  deal  with  the  moment  as  was 
Dwight.  She  saw  Di's  falseness  partly 
parented  by  these  parents.  She  burned  at 
the  enormity  of  Dwight's  appeal  to  her  for 
verification.  She  threw  up  her  head  and 
no  one  had  ever  seen  Lulu  look  like  this. 

"If  you  cannot  settle  this  with  Di,"  said 
Lulu,  "you  cannot  settle  it  with  me." 

"A  shifty  answer,"  said  Dwight.     "You 
have  a  genius  at  misrepresenting  facts,  you 

know,  Lulu." 

"Bobby  wanted  to  say  something,"  said 

Ina,  still  troubled. 

"No,  Mrs.  Deacon,"  said  Bobby,  low. 
have  nothing— more  to  say." 

In  a  little  while,  when  Bobby  went  away, 
Di  walked  with  him  to  the  gate.  It  was  as 
if,  the  worst  having  happened  to  her,  she 
dared  everything  now. 

"Bobby,"  she  said,  "you  hate  a  lie.  But 
what  else  could  I  do?" 

He  could  not  see  her,  could  see  only  the 
little  moon  of  her  face,  blurring. 
230 


September 


"And  anyhow,"  said  Di,  "it  wasn't  a  lie. 
We  didn't  elope,  did  we?" 

"What  do  you  think  I  came  for  to-night?" 
asked  Bobby. 

The  day  had  aged  him;  he  spoke  like  a 
man.  His  very  voice  came  gruffly.  But 
she  saw  nothing,  softened  to  him,  yielded, 
was  ready  to  take  his  regret  that  they  had 
not  gone  on. 

"Well,  I  came  for  one  thing,"  said  Bobby, 
"to  tell  you  that  I  couldn't  stand  for  your 
wanting  me  to  lie  to-day.  Why,  Di— I  hate 

a  lie.    And  now  to-night "     He  spoke 

his  code  almost  beautifully.     "I'd  rather," 
he  said,  "they  had  never  let  us  see  each 
other  again  than  to  lose  you  the  way  I've 
lost  you  now." 
"Bobby!" 

"It's  true.     We  mustn't  talk  about  it." 
"Bobby!    I'll  go  back  and  tell  them  all." 
"You  can't  go  back,"  said  Bobby.    "Not 
out  of  a  thing  like  that." 

She  stood  staring  after  him.     She  heard 
231 


some  one  coming  and  she  turned  toward 
the  house,  and  met  Cornish  leaving. 

"Miss  Di,"  he  cried,  "if  you're  going  1 
elope   with   anybody,   remember  it's  wi 

MHer   defence   was   ready-her   laughter 
rang  out  so  that  the  departing  Bobby  mighl 

The  came  back  to  the  steps  and  mounted 
slowly  in  the  lamplight,  a  little  white  thing 
with  whom  birth  had  taken  exquisite  pains. 
"If,"  she  said,  "if  you  have  any  fear 
that  I  may  ever  elope  with  Bobby  Larkm 
let  it  rest.  I  shall  never  marry  him 

asks  me  fifty  times  a  day." 
"Really,  darling?"  cried  Ina. 

"Really  and  truly,"   said  Di,     and  he 
knows  it,  too." 

Lulu  listened  and  read  all. 
«I   wondered,"    said   Ina   pensively, 
wondered  if  you  wouldn't  see  that  Bobby 
isn't  much  beside  that  nice  Mr.  Cormsh 

When  Di  had  gone  upstairs,  Ina  said  to 
Lulu  in  a  manner  of  cajoling  confidence 
232 


September 


"Sister "  she  rarely  called  her  that, 

ffwhy  did  you  and  Di  have  the  black  bag?" 

So  that  after  all  it  was  a  relief  to  Lulu 
to  hear  Dwight  ask  casually: 

"By  the  way,  Lulu,  haven't  I  got  some 
mail  somewhere  about?" 


"There  are  two  letters  on  the  parlour 
table,"  Lulu  answered.  To  Ina  she  added: 
"Let's  go  in  the  parlour." 

As  they  passed  through  the  hall,  Mrs. 
Bett  was  going  up  the  stairs  to  bed — when 
she  mounted  stairs  she  stooped  her  shoul 
ders,  bunched  her  extremities,  and  bent  her 
head.  Lulu  looked  after  her,  as  if  she 
were  half  minded  to  claim  the  protection  so 
long  lost. 

Dwight  lighted  the  gas.  "Better  turn 
down  the  gas  jest  a  little,"  said  he,  tire 
lessly. 

Lulu  handed  him  the  two  letters.  He 
saw  Ninian's  writing  and  looked  up,  said 
"A-ha!"  and  held  it  while  he  leisurely  read 
233 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


the  advertisement  of  dental  furniture,  his 
Ina  reading  over  his  shoulder.  "A-ha!" 
he  said  again,  and  with  designed  delibera 
tion  turned  to  Ninian's  letter.  "An  epistle 
from  my  dear  brother  Ninian."  The  words 
failed,  as  he  saw  the  unsealed  flap. 

"You  opened  the  letter?"  he  inquired  in 
credulously.  Fortunately  he  had  no  cli 
maxes  of  furious  calm  for  high  occasions. 
All  had  been  used  on  small  occasions.  "You 
opened  the  letter"  came  in  a  tone  of  no 
deeper  horror  than  "You  picked  the  flower" 
— once  put  to  Lulu. 

She  said  nothing.  As  it  is  impossible  to 
continue  looking  indignantly  at  some  one 
who  is  not  looking  at  you,  Dwight  turned 
to  Ina,  who  was  horror  and  sympathy,  a 
nice  half  and  half. 

"Your  sister  has  been  opening  my  mail," 
he  said. 

"But,  Dwight,  if  it's  from  Ninian— 

"It  is  my  mail,"  he  reminded  her.    "She 
had  asked  me  if  she  might  open  it.     Of 
course  I  told  her  no." 
234 


„  September 


"Well,"  said  Ina  practically,  "what  does 
he  say?" 

"I  shall  open  the  letter  in  my  own  time. 
My  present  concern  is  this  disregard  of 
my  wishes."  His  self-control  was  perfect, 
ridiculous,  devilish.  He  was  self -controlled 
because  thus  he  could  be  more  effectively 
cruel  than  in  temper.  "What  excuse  have 
you  to  offer?" 

Lulu  was  not  looking  at  him.  "None," 
she  said — not  defiantly,  or  ingratiatingly, 
or  fearfully.  Merely,  "None." 

"Why  did  you  do  it?" 

She  smiled  faintly  and  shook  her  head. 

"Dwight,"  said  Ina,  reasonably,  "she 
knows  what's  in  it  and  we  don't.  Hurry 
up." 

"She  is,"  said  Dwight,  after  a  pause, 
"an  ungrateful  woman." 

He  opened  the  letter,  saw  the  clipping, 
the  avowal,  with  its  facts. 

"A-ha!"  said  he.    "So  after  having  been 
absent  with  my  brother  for  a  month,  you 
find  that  you  were  not  married  to  him." 
235 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Lulu  spoke  her  exceeding  triumph. 

"You  see,  Dwight,"  she  said,  "he  told 
the  truth.  He  had  another  wife.  He  didn't 
just  leave  me." 

Dwight  instantly  cried:  "But  this  seems 
to  me  to  make  you  considerably  worse  off 
than  if  he  had." 

"Oh,  no,"  Lulu  said  serenely.  "No. 
Why,"  she  said,  "you  know  how  it  all 
came  about.  He — he  was  used  to  thinking 
of  his  wife  as  dead.  If  he  hadn't — hadn't 
liked  me,  he  wouldn't  have  told  me.  You 
see  that,  don't  you?" 

Dwight  laughed.  "That  your  apology?" 
he  asked. 

She  said  nothing. 

"Look  here,  Lulu,"  he  went  on,  "this  is 
a  bad  business.  The  less  you  say  about  it 
the  better,  for  all  our  sakes — you  see  that, 
don't  you?" 

"See  that?  Why,  no.  I  wanted  you  to 
write  to  him  so  I  could  tell  the  truth.  You 
said  I  mustn't  tell  the  truth  till  I  had  the 
proofs  .  .  .  ' 

236 


September 


"Tell  who?" 

"Tell  everybody.    I  want  them  to  know." 

"Then  you  care  nothing  for  our  feelings 
in  this  matter?" 

She  looked  at  him  now.  "Your  feel- 
ing?" 

"It's  nothing  to  you  that  we  have  a 
brother  who's  a  bigamist?" 

"But  it's  me— it's  me." 

"You!  You're  completely  out  of  it. 
Just  let  it  rest  as  it  is  and  it'll  drop." 

"I  want  the  people  to  know  the  truth," 
Lulu  said. 

"But  it's  nobody's  business  but  our  busi 
ness!  I  take  it  you  don't  intend  to  sue 
Ninian?" 

"Sue  him?    Oh  no!" 

"Then,  for  all  our  sakes,  let's  drop  the 
matter." 

Lulu  had  fallen  in  one  of  her  old  atti 
tudes,  tense,  awkward,  her  hands  awkward 
ly  placed,  her  feet  twisted.  She  kept  put 
ting  a  lock  back  of  her  ear,  she  kept  swal 
lowing. 

237 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Tell  you,  Lulu,"  said  Dwight.  "Here 
are  three  of  us.  Our  interests  are  the  same 
in  this  thing — only  Ninian  is  our  relative 
and  he's  nothing  to  you  now.  Is  he?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  Lulu  in  surprise. 

"Very  well.  Let's  have  a  vote.  Your 
snap  judgment  is  to  tell  this  disgraceful 
fact  broadcast.  Mine  is,  least  said,  soonest 
mended.  What  do  you  say,  Ina — con 
sidering  Di  and  all?" 

"Oh,  goodness,"  said  Ina,  "if  we  get 
mixed  up  with  bigamy,  we'll  never  get 
away  from  it.  Why,  I  wouldn't  have  it 
told  for  worlds." 

Still  in  that  twisted  position,  Lulu  looked 
up  at  her.  Her  straying  hair,  her  parted 
lips,  her  lifted  eyes  were  singularly  pathetic. 

"My  poor,  poor  sister!"  Ina  said.  She 
struck  together  her  little  plump  hands.  "Oh, 
Dwight — when  I  think  of  it:  What  have 
I  done — what  have  we  done  that  I  should 
have  a  good,  kind,  loving  husband — be  so 
protected,  so  loved,  when  other  women.  .  .  . 
Darling!"  she  sobbed,  and  drew  near  to 
238 


-  September 


Lulu.  "You  know  how  sorry  I  am — we  all 
are.  ..." 

Lulu  stood  up.  The  white  shawl  slipped 
to  the  floor.  Her  hands  were  stiffly  joined. 

"Then,"  she  said,  "give  me  the  only  thing 
I've  got — that's  my  pride.  My  pride — 
that  he  didn't  want  to  get  rid  of  me." 

They  stared  at  her.  "What  about  my 
pride?"  D wight  called  to  her,  as  across 
great  distances.  "Do  you  think  I  want 
everybody  to  know  my  brother  did  a  thing 
like  that?" 

"You  can't  help  that,"  said  Lulu. 

"But  I  want  you  to  help  it.  I  want  you 
to  promise  me  that  you  won't  shame  us  like 
this  before  all  our  friends." 

"You  want  me  to  promise  what?" 

"I  want  you — I  ask  you,"  D  wight  said 
with  an  effort,  "to  promise  me  that  you 
will  keep  this,  with  us — a  family  secret." 

"No!"  Lulu  cried.  "No.  I  won't  do  it! 
I  won't  do  it!  I  won't  do  it!" 

It  was  like  some  crude  chant,  knowing 
only  two  tones.  She  threw  out  her  hands, 
239 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


her  wrists  long  and  dark  on  her  blue  skirt, 
"Can't  you  understand  anything?"  she 
asked.  "I've  lived  here  all  my  life — on 
your  money.  I've  not  been  strong  enough 
to  work,  they  say — well,  but  I've  been 
strong  enough  to  be  a  hired  girl  in  your 
house — and  I've  been  glad  to  pay  for  my 
keep.  .  .  .  But  there  wasn't  anything  about 
it  I  liked.  Nothing  about  being  here  that 
I  liked.  .  .  .  Well,  then  I  got  a  little 
something,  same  as  other  folks.  I  thought 
I  was  married  and  I  went  off  on  the  train 
and  he  bought  me  things  and  I  saw  the 
different  towns.  And  then  it  was  all  a  mis 
take.  I  didn't  have  any  of  it.  I  came 
back  here  and  went  into  your  kitchen  again 
— I  don't  know  why  I  came  back.  I  s'pose 
because  I'm  most  thirty-four  and  new 
things  ain't  so  easy  any  more — but  what 
have  I  got  or  what'll  I  ever  have?  And 
now  you  want  to  put  on  to  me  having 
folks  look  at  me  and  think  he  run  off  and 
left  me,  and  having  'em  all  wonder.  .  .  . 
240 


.September 


I    can't   stand   it.      I    can't    stand   it.      I 
can't.  ..." 

"You'd  rather  they'd  know  he  fooled  you, 
when  he  had  another  wife?"  D  wight 
sneered. 

"Yes!  Because  he  wanted  me.  How  do 
I  know — maybe  he  wanted  me  only  just  be 
cause  he  was  lonesome,  the  way  I  was.  I 
don't  care  why!  And  I  won't  have  folks 
think  he  went  and  left  me." 

"That,"  said  D  wight,  "is  a  wicked 
vanity." 

"That's  the  truth.  Well,  why  can't  they 
know  the  truth?" 

"And  bring  disgrace  on  us  all." 

"It's  me — it's  me "  Lulu's  individual 
ism  strove  against  that  terrible  tribal  sense, 
was  shattered  by  it. 

"It's  all  of  us!"  Dwight  boomed.  "It's 
Di." 

"Di?"    He  had  Lulu's  eyes  now. 

"Why,  it's  chiefly  on  Di's  account  that 
I'm  talking,"  said  Dwight. 

"How  would  it  hurt  Di?" 
241 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"To  have  a  thing  like  that  in  the  family? 
Well,  can't  you  see  how  it'd  hurt  her?" 

"Would  it,  Ina?    Would  it  hurt  Di?" 

"Why,  it  would  shame  her — embarrass 
her — make  people  wonder  what  kind  of 
stock  she  came  from — oh,"  Ina  sobbed,  "my 
pure  little  girl!" 

"Hurt  her  prospects,  of  course,"  said 
Dwight.  "Anybody  could  see  that." 

"I  s'pose  it  would,"  said  Lulu. 

She  clasped  her  arms  tightly,  awkwardly, 
and  stepped  about  the  floor,  her  broken 
shoes  showing  beneath  her  cotton  skirt. 

"When  a  family  once  gets  talked  about 
for  any  reason "  said  Ina  and  shud 
dered. 

"I'm  talked  about  now!" 

"But  nothing  that  you  could  help.  If 
he  got  tired  of  you,  you  couldn't  help  that." 
This  misstep  was  Dwight's. 

"No,"  Lulu  said,  "I  couldn't  help  that. 
And  I  couldn't  help  his  other  wife,  either." 

"Bigamy,"  said  Dwight,  "that's  a  crime." 

"I've  done  no  crime,"  said  Lulu. 
242 


September 


"Bigamy,"  said  Dwight,  "disgraces 
everybody  it  touches." 

"Even  Di,"  Lulu  said. 

"Lulu,"  said  Dwight,  "on  Di's  account 
will  you  promise  us  to  let  this  thing  rest 
with  us  three?" 

"I  s'pose  so,"  said  Lulu  quietly. 

"You  will?" 

"I  s'pose  so." 

Ina  sobbed:  "Thank  you,  thank  you, 
Lulu.  This  makes  up  for  everything." 

Lulu  was  thinking:  "Di  has  a  hard 
enough  time  as  it  is."  Aloud  she  said:  "I 
told  Mr.  Cornish,  but  he  won't  tell." 

"I'll  see  to  that,"  Dwight  graciously  of 
fered. 

"Goodness,"  Ina  said,  "so  he  knows. 
Well,  that  settles "  She  said  no  more. 

"You'll  be  happy  to  think  you've  done 
this  for  us,  Lulu,"  said  Dwight. 

"I  s'pose  so,"  said  Lulu. 

Ina,  pink  from  her  little  gust  of  sobbing, 
went  to  her,  kissed  her,  her  trim  tan  tailor 
suit  against  Lulu's  blue  cotton. 
243 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"My  sweet,  self-sacrificing  sister,"  she 
murmured. 

"Oh  stop  that!"  Lulu  said. 

Dwight  took  her  hand,  lying  limply  in 
his.  "I  can  now,"  he  said,  "overlook  the 
matter  of  the  letter." 

Lulu  drew  back.  She  put  her  hair  be 
hind  her  ears,  swallowed,  and  cried  out. 

"Don't  you  go  around  pitying  me!  I'll 
have  you  know  I'm  glad  the  whole  thing 
happened!" 

Cornish  had  ordered  six  new  copies  of  a 
popular  song.  He  knew  that  it  was  popular 
because  it  was  called  so  in  a  Chicago  pa 
per.  When  the  six  copies  arrived  with  a 
danseuse  on  the  covers  he  read  the  "words," 
looked  wistfully  at  the  symbols  which  shut 
him  out,  and  felt  well  pleased. 

"Got  up  quite  attractive,"  he  thought, 
and  fastened  the  six  copies  in  the  window 
of  his  music  store. 

It  was  not  yet  nine  o'clock  of  a  vivid 
morning.  Cornish  had  his  floor  and  side- 
244 


September 


walk  sprinkled,  his  red  and  blue  plush 
piano  spreads  dusted.  He  sat  at  a  fold" 
ing  table  well  back  in  the  store,  and  opened 
a  law  book. 

For  half  an  hour  he  read.  Then  he  found 
himself  looking  off  the  page,  stabbed  by  a 
reflection  which  always  stabbed  him  anew: 
Was  he  really  getting  anywhere  with  his 
law?  And  where  did  he  really  hope  to  get? 
Of  late  when  he  awoke  at  night  this  ques 
tion  had  stood  by  the  cot,  waiting. 

The  cot  had  appeared  there  in  the  back 
of  the  music  store,  behind  a  dark  sateen  cur 
tain  with  too  few  rings  on  the  wire.  How 
little  else  was  in  there,  nobody  knew.  But 
those  passing  in  the  late  evening  saw  the 
blur  of  his  kerosene  lamp  behind  that  cur 
tain  and  were  smitten  by  a  realistic  illusion 
of  personal  loneliness. 

It  was  behind  that  curtain  that  these  un 
reasoning  questions  usually  attacked  him, 
when  his  giant,  wavering  shadow  had  died 
upon  the  wall  and  the  faint  smell  of  the 
extinguished  lamp  went  with  him  to  his 
245 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


bed;  or  when  he  waked  before  any  sign  of 
dawn.  In  the  mornings  all  was  cheerful 
and  wonted — the  question  had  not  before 
attacked  him  among  his  red  and  blue  plush 
spreads,  his  golden  oak  and  ebony  cases,  of 
a  sunshiny  morning. 

A  step  at  his  door  set  him  flying.  He 
wanted  passionately  to  sell  a  piano. 

"Well!"  he  cried,  when  he  saw  his  visitor. 

It  was  Lulu,  in  her  dark  red  suit  and  her 
tilted  hat. 

"Well!"  she  also  said,  and  seemed  to  have 
no  idea  of  saying  anything  else.  Her  ex 
citement  was  so  obscure  that  he  did  not  dis 
cern  it. 

"You're  out  early,"  said  he,  participating 
in  the  village  chorus  of  this  bright  challenge 
at  this  hour. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Lulu. 

He  looked  out  the  window,  pretending 
to  be  caught  by  something  passing,  leaned 
to  see  it  the  better. 

"Oh,  how'd  you  get  along  last  night?" 
246 


September 


he  asked,  and  wondered  why  he  had  not 
thought  to  say  it  before. 

"All  right,  thank  you,"  said  Lulu. 

"Was  he — about  the  letter,  you  know?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "but  that  didn't  mat 
ter.  You'll  be  sure,"  she  added,  "not  to  say 
anything  about  what  was  in  the  letter?" 

"Why,  not  till  you  tell  me  I  can,"  said 
Cornish,  "but  won't  everybody  know  now?" 

"No,"  Lulu  said. 

At  this  he  had  no  more  to  say,  and  feel 
ing  his  speculation  in  his  eyes,  dropped 
them  to  a  piano  scarf  from  which  he  be 
gan  flicking  invisible  specks. 

"I  came  to  tell  you  good-bye,"  Lulu 
said. 

"Goofrbyet" 

"Yes.  I'm  going  off — for  a  while.  My 
satchel's  in  the  bakery — I  had  my  breakfast 
in  the  bakery." 

"Say!"  Cornish  cried  warmly,  "then 
everything  wasn't  all  right  last  night?" 

"As  right  as  it  can  ever  be  with  me,"  she 
told  him.  "Oh,  yes.  Dwight  forgave  me." 
247 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"Forgave  you!" 
She  smiled,  and  trembled. 
"Look  here,"   said   Cornish,   "you  come 
here  and  sit  down  and  tell  me  about  this." 
He  led  her  to  the  folding  table,  as  the 
only  social  spot  in  that  vast  area  of  his, 
seated  her  in  the  one  chair,  and  for  himself 
brought  up  a  piano  stool.     But  after  all 
she  told  him  nothing.    She  merely  took  the 
comfort  of  his  kindly  indignation. 

"It  came  out  all  right,"  she  said  only. 
"But  I  won't  stay  there  any  more.  I  can't 
do  that." 

"Then  what  are  you  going  to  do?" 
"In  Millton  yesterday,"  she  said,  "I  saw 
an  advertisement  in  the  hotel— they  wanted 
a  chambermaid." 

"Oh,  Miss  Bett!"  he  cried.  At  that  name 
she  flushed.  "Why,"  said  Cornish,  "you 
must  have  been  coming  from  Millton  yes 
terday  when  I  saw  you.  I  noticed  Miss  Di 

had   her   bag "     He   stopped,    stared. 

"You  brought  her  back!"  he  deduced  every 
thing. 

248 


September 


"Oh !"  said  Lulu.    "Oh,  no— I  mean " 

"I  heard  about  the  eloping  again  this 
morning,"  he  said.  "That's  just  what  you 
did — you  brought  her  back." 

"You  mustn't  teU  that!  You  won't? 
You  won't!" 

"No.  'Course  not."  He  mulled  it.  "You 
tell  me  this :  Do  they  know?  I  mean  about 
your  going  after  her?" 

"No." 

"You  never  told!" 

"They  don't  know  she  went." 

"That's  a  funny  thing,"  he  blurted  out, 
"for  you  not  to  tell  her  folks — I  mean, 
right  off.  Before  last  night.  .  .  ." 

"You  don't  know  them.  Dwight'd  never 
let  up  on  that — he'd  joke  her  about  it  after 
a  while." 

"But  it  seems " 

"Ina'd  talk  about  disgracing  her.  They 
wouldn't  know  what  to  do.  There's  no 
sense  in  telling  them.  They  aren't  a  mother 
and  father,"  Lulu  said. 

Cornish  was  not  accustomed  to  deal  with 
249 


, — 

so  much  reality.    But  Lulu's  reality  he  could 

grasp. 

"You're  a  trump  anyhow,"  he  affirmed. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Lulu  modestly. 

Yes,  she  was.    He  insisted  upon  it. 

"By  George,"  he  exclaimed,  "you  don't 
find  very  many  married  women  with  as 
good  sense  as  you've  got." 
'  At  this,  just  as  he  was  agonising  because 
he  had  seemed  to  refer  to  the  truth  that  she 
was,  after  all,  not  married,  at  this  Lulu 
laughed  in  some  amusement,  and  said  noth- 

insj. 

"You've  been  a  jewel  in  their  home  all 
right,"  said  Cornish.  "I  bet  they'll  miss 
you  if  you  do  go." 

"They'll  miss  my   cooking,"   Lulu   saw 
without  bitterness. 

"They'll  miss  more  than  that,  I  know. 
I've  often  watched  you  there— 

"You  have?"  It  was  not  so  much  pleas 
ure  as  passionate  gratitude  which  lighted 

her  eyes. 

250 


September 


"You  made  the  whole  place,"  said  Cor 
nish. 

"You  don't  mean  just  the  cooking?" 

"No,  no.  I  mean — well,  that  first  night 
when  you  played  croquet.  I  felt  at  home 
when  you  came  out." 

That  look  of  hers,  rarely  seen,  which 
was  no  less  than  a  look  of  loveliness,  came 
now  to  Lulu's  face.  After  a  pause  she  said : 

"I  never  had  but  one  compliment  before 
that  wasn't  for  my  cooking."  She  seemed 
to  feel  that  she  must  confess  to  that  one. 
"He  told  me  I  done  my  hair  up  nice."  She 
added  conscientiously:  "That  was  after  I 
took  notice  how  the  ladies  in  Savannah, 
Georgia,  done  up  theirs." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Cornish  only. 

"Well,"  said  Lulu,  "I  must  be  going 
now.  I  wanted  to  say  good-bye  to  you — - 
and  there's  one  or  two  other  places.  ..." 

"I  hate  to  have  you  go,"  said  Cornish, 
and  tried  to  add  something.  "I  hate  to  have 
you  go,"  was  all  that  he  could  find  to  add. 
251 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


Lulu  rose.  "Oh,  well,"  was  all  that  she 
could  find. 

They  shook  hands,  Lulu  laughing  a  little. 
Cornish  followed  her  to  the  door.  He  had 
begun  on  "Look  here,  I  wish  ..."  when 
Lulu  said  "good-bye,"  and  paused,  wishing 
intensely  to  know  what  he  would  have  said. 
But  all  that  he  said  was:  "Good-bye.  I 
wish  you  weren't  going." 

"So  do  I,"  said  Lulu,  and  went,  still 
laughing. 

Cornish  saw  her  red  dress  vanish  from 
his  door,  flash  by  his  window,  her  head 
averted.  And  there  settled  upon  him  a  de 
pression  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  slow 
depression  of  his  days.  This  was  more — 
it  assailed  him,  absorbed  him. 

He  stood  staring  out  the  window.  Some 
one  passed  with  a  greeting  of  which  he  was 
conscious  too  late  to  return.  He  wandered 
back  down  the  store  and  his  pianos  looked 
back  at  him  like  strangers.  Down  there 
was  the  green  curtain  which  screened  his 
home  life.  He  suddenly  hated  that  gfeen 
252 


September 


curtain.  He  hated  this  whole  place.  For 
the  first  time  it  occurred  to  him  that  he 
hated  Warbleton. 

He  came  back  to  his  table,  and  sat  down 
before  his  lawbook.  But  he  sat,  chin  on 
chest,  regarding  it.  No  ,  .  ••  no  escape 
that  way.  .  .  . 

A  step  at  the  door  and  he  sprang  up.  It 
was  Lulu,  coming  toward  him,  her  face 
unsmiling  but  somehow  quite  lighted.  In 
her  hand  was  a  letter. 

"See,"  she  said.  "At  the  office  was 
this.  ..." 

She  thrust  in  his  hand  the  single  sheet. 
He  read: 

.  .  .  just  wanted  you  to  know  you're 
actually  rid  of  me.  I've  heard  from  her, 
in  Brazil.  She  ran  out  of  money  and 
thought  of  me,  and  her  lawyer  wrote  to 
me.  .  .  .  I've  never  been  any  good — Dwight 
would  tell  you  that  if  his  pride  would  let 
him  tell  the  truth  once  in  a  while.  But 
there  ain't  anything  in  my  life  makes  me 
253 


Miss  Lulu  Belt 


feel  as  bad  as  this.  ...  I  s'pose  you 
couldn't  understand  and  I  don't  myself. 
.  .  .  Only  the  sixteen  years  keeping  still 
made  me  think  she  was  gone  sure  .  .  .  but 
you  were  so  downright  good,  that's  what 
was  the  worst  ...  do  you  see  what  I  want 
to  say  .  .  ." 

Cornish  read  it  all  and  looked  at  Lulu. 
She  was  grave  and  in  her  eyes  there  was  a 
look  of  dignity  such  as  he  had  never  seen 
them  wear.  Incredible  dignity. 

"He  didn't  lie  to  get  rid  of  me— and  she 
was  alive,  just  as  he  thought  she  might  be," 
she  said. 

"I'm  glad,"  said  Cornish. 

"Yes,"  said  Lulu.  "He  isn't  quite  so 
bad  as  Dwight  tried  to  make  him  out." 

It  was  not  of  this  that  Cornish  had  been 
thinking. 

"Now  you're  free,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  that  ..."  said  Lulu. 

She  replaced  her  letter  in  its  envelope. 
254 


September 


"Now  I'm  really  going,"  she  said.  "Good 
bye  for  sure  this  time.  ..." 

Her  words  trailed  away.  Cornish  had 
laid  his  hand  on  her  arm. 

"Don't  say  good-bye,"  he  said. 

"It's  late,"  she  said,  "I " 

"Don't  you  go,"  said  Cornish. 

She  looked  at  him  mutely. 

"Do  you  think  you  could  possibly  stay 
here  with  me?" 

"Oh!"  said  Lulu,  like  no  word. 

He  went  on,  not  looking  at  her.  "I 
haven't  got  anything.  I  guess  maybe  you've 
heard  something  about  a  little  something 
I'm  supposed  to  inherit.  Well,  it's  only 
five  hundred  dollars." 

His  look  searched  her  face,  but  she  hardly 
heard  what  he  was  saying. 

"That  little  Warden  house— it  don't  cost 
much — you'd  be  surprised.  Rent,  I  mean. 
I  can  get  it  now.  I  went  and  looked  at  it 

the  other  day,  but  then  I  didn't  think " 

he  caught  himself  on  that.  "It  don't  cost 
255 


Miss  Lulu  Bett   • 


near  as  much  as  this  store.    We  could  fur 
nish  up  the  parlour  with  pianos- 
He  was  startled  by  that  "we,"  and  began 
again: 

"That  is,  if  you  could  ever  think  of  such 
a  thing  as  marrying  me." 

"But,"  said  Lulu.  "You  know!  Why, 
don't  the  disgrace " 

"What  disgrace?"  asked  Cornish. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "you— you " 

"There's  only  this  about  that,"  said  he. 
"Of  course,  if  you  loved  him  very  much, 
then  I'd  ought  not  to  be  talking  this  way 
to  you.  But  I  didn't  think " 

"You  didn't  think  what?" 

"That  you  did  care  so  very  much — about 
him.  I  don't  know  why." 

She  said:  "I  wanted  somebody  of  my 
own.  That's  the  reason  I  done  what  I  done. 
I  know  that  now." 

"I  figured  that  way,"  said  Cornish. 

They  dismissed  it.  But  now  he  brought 
to  bear  something  which  he  saw  that  she 
should  know. 

256 


September 


"Look  here,"  he  said,  "I'd  ought  to  tell 
you.  I'm — I'm  awful  lonesome  myself. 
This  is  no  place  to  live.  And  I  guess  living 
so  is  one  reason  why  I  want  to  get  married. 
I  want  some  kind  of  a  home." 

He  said  it  as  a  confession.  She  accepted 
it  as  a  reason. 

"Of  course,"  she  said. 

"I  ain't  never  lived  what  you  might  say 
private,"  said  Cornish. 

"I've  lived  too  private,"  Lulu  said. 

"Then  there's  another  thing."  This  was 
harder  to  tell  her.  "I — I  don't  believe  I'm 
ever  going  to  be  able  to  do  a  thing  with 
law." 

"I  don't  see,"  said  Lulu,  "how  anybody 
does." 

"I'm  not  much  good  in  a  business  way,'1 
he  owned,  with  a  faint  laugh.  "Sometimes 
I  think,"  he  drew  down  his  brows,  "that  I 
may  never  be  able  to  make  any  money." 

She  said:  "Lots  of  men  don't." 

"Could  you  risk  it  with  me?"  CornisK 
asked  her.  "There's  nobody  I've  seen,"  he 
257 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


went  on  gently,  "that  I  like  as  much  as  I 
do  you.  I— I  was  engaged  to  a  girl  once, 
but  we  didn't  get  along.  I  guess  if  you'd 
be  willing  to  try  me,  we  would  get  along." 
Lulu  said:  "I  thought  it  was  Di  that 

j? 
you 

"Miss  Di?     Why,"  said  Cornish,  "she's 
a  little  kid.    And,"  he  added,  "she's  a  little 

liar." 

"But  I'm  going  on  thirty-four." 

"So  am  I!" 

"Isn't  there  somebody " 

"Look  here.    Do  you  like  me  ?" 
"Oh,  yes!" 

"Well  enough " 

"It's  you  I  was  thinking  of,"  said  Lulu. 
"I'd  be  all  right." 

"Then!"  Cornish  cried,  and  he  kissed  her. 


"And  now,"  said  Dwight,  "nobody  must 
mind  if  I  hurry  a  little  wee  bit.  I've  got 
something  on." 

He  and  Ina  and  Monona  were  at  dinner. 
258 


September 


Mrs.  Bett  was  in  her  room.     Di  was  not 
there. 

"Anything  about  Lulu?"  Ina  asked. 

"Lulu?"  Dwight  stared.  "Why  should 
I  have  anything  to  do  about  Lulu?" 

"Well,  but,  Dwight — we've  got  to  do 
something." 

"As  I  told  you  this  morning,"  he  ob 
served,  "we  shall  do  nothing.  Your  sister 
is  of  age — I  don't  know  about  the  sound 
mind,  but  she  is  certainly  of  age.  If  she 
chooses  to  go  away,  she  is  free  to  go  where 
she  will." 

"LYes,  but,  Dwight,  where  has  she  gone? 
Where  could  she  go?  Where " 

"You  are  a  question-box,"  said  Dwight 
playfully.  "A  question-box." 

Ina  had  burned  her  plump  wrist  on  the 
oven.  She  lifted  her  arm  and  nursed  it. 

"I'm  certainly  going  to  miss  her  if  she 
stays  away  very  long,"  she  remarked. 

"You  should  be  sufficient  unto  your  little 
self,"  said  Dwight. 

259 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"That's  all  right,"  said  Ina,  "except  when 
you're  getting  dinner." 

"I  want  some  crust  coffee,"  announced 
Monona  firmly. 

"You'll  have  nothing  of  the  sort,"  said 
Ina.  "Drink  your  milk." 

"As  I  remarked,"  Dwight  went  on,  "I'm 
in  a  tiny  wee  bit  of  a  hurry." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  say  what  for?"  his 
Ina  asked. 

She  knew  that  he  wanted  to  be  asked, 
and  she  was  sufficiently  willing  to  play  his 
games,  and  besides  she  wanted  to  know. 
But  she  was  hot. 

"I  am  going,"  said  Dwight,  "to  take 
Grandma  Gates  out  in  a  wheel-chair,  for  an 
hour." 

"Where  did  you  get  a  wheel-chair,  for, 
mercy  sakes?" 

"Borrowed  it  from  the  railroad  com 
pany,"  said  Dwight,  with  the  triumph 
peculiar  to  the  resourceful  man.  "Why  I 
never  did  it  before,  I  can't  imagine.  There 
that  chair's  been  in  the  depot  ever  since  I 
260 


September 


can  remember — saw  it  every  time  I  took 
the  train — and  yet  I  never  once  thought  of 
grandma." 

"My,  Dwight,"  said  Ina,  "how  good  you 
are!" 

"Nonsense!"  said  he. 

"Well,  you  are.  Why  don't  I  send  her 
over  a  baked  apple?  Monona,  you  take 
Grandma  Gates  a  baked  apple — no.  You 
shan't  go  till  you  drink  your  milk." 

"I  don't  want  it." 

"Drink  it  or  mamma  won't  let  you  go." 

Monona  drank  it,  made  a  piteous  face, 
took  the  baked  apple,  ran. 

"The  apple  isn't  very  good,"  said  Ina, 
"but  it  shows  my  good  will." 

"Also,"  said  Dwight,  "it  teaches  Monona 
a  life  of  thoughtfulness  for  others." 

"That's  what  I  always  think,"  his  Ina 
said. 

"Can't  you  get  mother  to  come  out?" 
Dwight  inquired. 

"I   had   so  much  to   do   getting   dinner 
onto  the  table,  I  didn't  try,"  Ina  confessed. 
261 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


"You  didn't  have  to  try,"  Mrs.  Bett's 
voice  sounded.  "I  was  coming  when  I  got 
rested  up." 

She  entered,  looking  vaguely  about.  "I 
want  Lulie,"  she  said,  and  the  corners  of 
her  mouth  drew  down.  She  ate  her  dinner 
cold,  appeased  in  vague  areas  by  such 
martyrdom.  They  were  still  at  table  when 
the  front  door  opened. 

"Monona  hadn't  ought  to  use  the  front 
door  so  common,"  Mrs.  Bett  complained. 

But  it  was  not  Monona.  It  was  Lulu 
and  Cornish. 

"Well!"  said  Dwight,  tone  curving  down 
ward. 

"Well!"  said  Ina,  in  replica. 

"Lulie!"  said  Mrs.  Bett,  and  left  her 
dinner,  and  went  to  her  daughter  and  put 
her  hands  upon  her. 

"We  wanted  to  tell  you  first,"  Cornish 
said.  "We've  just  got  married." 

"Fom;mnore !"  said  Ina. 

"What's  this?"  Dwight  sprang  to  his 
feet.  "You're  joking!"  he  cried  with  hope. 
262 


September 


"No,"  Cornish  said  soberly.  "We're 
married — just  now.  Methodist  parsonage. 
We've  had  our  dinner,"  he  added  hastily. 

"Where'd  you  have  it?"  Ina  demanded, 
for  no  known  reason. 

"The  bakery,"  Cornish  replied,  and 
flushed. 

"In  the  dining-room  part,"  Lulu  added. 

Dwight's  sole  emotion  was  his  indigna 
tion. 

"What  on  earth  did  you  do  it  for?"  he 
put  it  to  them.  "Married  in  a  bakery " 

No,  no.  They  explained  it  again. 
Neither  of  them,  they  said,  wanted  the  fuss 
of  a  wedding. 

Dwight  recovered  himself  in  a  measure. 
"I'm  not  surprised,  after  all,"  he  said. 
"Lulu  usually  marries  in  this  way." 

Mrs.  Bett  patted  her  daughter's  arm. 
"Lulie,"  she  said,  "why,  Lulie.  You  ain't 
been  and  got  married  twice,  have  you? 
After  waitin'  so  long?" 

"Don't  be  disturbed,  Mother  Bett," 
Dwight  cried.  "She  wasn't  married  that 
263 


Miss  Lulu  Bett 


first  time,  if  you  remember.     No  marriage 
about  it!" 

Ina's  little  shriek  sounded. 

"Dwight!"  she  cried.  "Now  everybody'll 
have  to  know  that.  You'll  have  to  tell 
about  Ninian  now — and  his  other  wife!" 

Standing  between  her  mother  and  Cor 
nish,  an  arm  of  each  about  her,  Lulu  looked 
across  at  Ina  and  Dwight,  and  they  all 
saw  in  her  face  a  horrified  realisation. 

"Ina!"  she  said.  "Dwight!  You  will 
have  to  tell  now,  won't  you?  Why  I  never 
thought  of  that." 

At  this  Dwight  sneered,  was  sneering 
still  as  he  went  to  give  Grandma  Gates 
her  ride  in  the  wheel-chair  and  as  he 
stooped  with  patient  kindness  to  tuck 
her  in. 

The  street  door  was  closed.  If  Mrs. 
Bett  was  peeping  through  the  blind,  no 
one  saw  her.  In  the  pleasant  mid-day  light 
under  the  maples,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Neil 
Cornish  were  hurrying  toward  the  railway 
station.  (4) 

264 


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